Bringing the City into the Classroom

10.17.09 By Neema Avashia

One of the units I’m supposed to teach as part of the Civics curriculum is on the topic of voting. If I stuck solely to the content in the curriculum, then I would talk about the political spectrum, political parties, primary and general elections, and leave it at that. Of course, I’m not really a ‘leave it at that’ kind of person, so that never happens. Last year, with the Presidential election at hand, it was very easy to incorporate current events into the Vote unit, and make it relevant for kids in ways that had them engaged and excited about the election.

This year, there is obviously no Presidential election to speak of. But in reviewing my Vote unit, I decided that I wanted to place major emphasis on the upcoming city elections. Though some might disagree with me, I think city politics are ultimately even more relevant to the lives of young people than national politics are, and yet, we have astoundingly low voter turnout rates in Boston, and low levels of interest in city elections. So I thought I’d try to do my part to change that with the 84 young people I teach.

There have been some both amusing and exciting moments so far. I spent much of last Saturday driving around the city collecting campaign brochures and posters from various candidates, but could not get in touch with all offices, so I challenged kids to find materials in their neighborhoods and bring them in. The next day, one of my students came in and told me that he’d tried to bring a Menino poster onto the bus, but the bus driver had said that he disliked Menino, and that the student could either leave the poster behind, or walk to school!

Felix Arroyo Jr. came in and spoke with my students last week, and talked about his reasons for running for city council. This was cool on so many levels, probably the greatest of which was that Felix actually WENT to the McCormack when he was in 6th grade. How powerful for kids to see that someone who walked the same halls they’re walking now has gone on to make a name for himself in city politics?

Tomas Gonzalez’s brother, and campaign manager, donated tons of supplies for my students’ Unit project, which involved choosing a candidate and creating a campaign poster advocating for that candidate’s election.

Tito Jackson, another candidate for City Council, is coming in to speak with kids on Monday. He and I had a great 20-minute phone conversation about the current conditions in the Boston Public Schools. I’ve explained to kids REPEATEDLY that he is not Michael Jackson’s brother, but remain slightly nervous that the question will come up on Monday!

I created a bulletin board outside my room all about the city elections, and on Friday, one of the cafeteria workers stopped by to say that she also works for the Department of Elections, and will bring me sample ballots and a voting booth for kids to look at.

The unit is actually over at this point, and I’m in the early stages of planning a school-wide mock city election for later this month. But I’ve been thrilled by how excited kids have gotten about the mayoral and city council elections, how firmly they’ve latched on to specific candidates, and how willing they are to continue learning about the elections even though the Unit test is done and over with. And it’s been equally exciting to see how adults in this city respond when they find out that young people are learning about the elections.

It’s nothing new to good teachers that the best teaching and learning occurs when the content is relevant, and the products authentic. But the feelings evoked when you’re in the midst of that work are pretty incredible, and worth documenting, I think, if for no other reason than to serve as a reminder that the more often we can teach this way, the better!