What Happens When You Awaken a Sense of Civic Engagement in Students?

What happens when you awaken a sense of civic engagement in students? When a teacher gives a call to action across a network of empowered , empassioned and engaged colleagues? They have a party!

#MYParty12

The Invitation

Let’s Talk Politics!

“2012 should be the year we leverage politics to teach media literacy & critical thinking in the classroom”

Students began diving deeply into learning about media bias, campaign techniques and thinking deeply about what they themselves believe.  Read Mike Kaechele, facilitator at Kent Innovation High's, blog post detailing "What My Student's Believe About Politics"

Students began to formulate their party platforms and even to discuss them at home.

Middle School students at APEX in Indiana  rocked the vote by registering high schools students and assisting with voter registration at a local community center.

Ypsilanti New Tech students got involved in an issue that deeply affects them, district consolidation, and presented their findings to the school board.

Students across the country have been tweeting together every debate, with several schools hosting debate parties. After learning all day at school, then going to various practices, rehearsals or work, students met back at the school to watch & tweet the debates with their classmates and teachers.

Warren New Tech High Students

Insights from the students debate watching

See complete 1st Debate archive here

See complete VP debate tweet archive here

See complete 2nd debate archive here

The students were APPALLED by the lack of civility in these debates, definitely a big take-away !

After much critical thinking surrounding the debates, students began to prepare their own stump speeches and got busy story boarding and filming their commercials. Read more about that process in this article from mLive

Each of the schools involved had students select the best campaign commercials and platforms and submit them to this playlist.

On October 29th from 10am to 11am EST students will be tweeting @BarackObama and @MittRomney with their concerns, issues and/or support.

On November 2nd at noon EST the top 5 student candidates will debate via a Google+ Hangout so that students everywhere can evaluate the debate along with the commercials & platforms of each of these groups before final voting across the network begins.

We will also be voting via a poll inside Echo on actual Election Day for President of the United States! It should be very exciting to watch those votes roll in live.

Three of the many great joys of this project have been watching teachers across the country collaborate via Echo,  Skype & Twitter, watching students investigating, evaluating and communicating on issues about which they are passionate and anticipating how these connections will continue beyond the scope of this project.

These stories are just a small part of the bridges being built by teachers & students during this project, I can't wait to see what these amazing, engaged, fearless educators and students do next! 

Photo from @jschackow



 

The last two years of college are great that's when you really start learning.

"Once you get the classes you don't care about done, the last two years of college are great that's when you really start learning.  "  We have 3 college-age sons and this was the general consensus as we all were on the front porch talking.  My husband and I, both college grads, nodded in agreement.
Wow!  Doesn't that seem wrong?  It made me start thinking about what, exactly, I remember learning in college.  During my first two years, I learned to give my profs what they wanted.  I had a Pysch prof that wanted us to memorize picture captions, at least I think he did, since he put questions on the exam from them.  I had a writing teacher whose only feedback was "No one gets A's as a freshman in my courses". So I learned that with  lots of effort I could get a B or with a little effort, I could get a B . So, I think I learned to figure out what people want and then give it to them.   I always used to joke that my private liberal arts education made me really good at Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit. I no longer find that funny. So far, college has been a similar experience for our boys.  We have told the older two, hang in there, you'll love it when you are a junior.  Now, I'm a little worried about our youngest, he heads off to his first dorm room this weekend.  He went to a different kind of high school, a New Tech Network school.  He hasn't been schooled in the ways of "sit and get" he expects relationships with his teachers, relevant work and coaching, not lecturing.   He chose a school in Northwest Indiana where the New Tech model is growing exponentially. This school says they are ready for this kind of learner,not only are they ready, they want these "New Tech" kids. They have  a STEM emphasis, and are recruiting critical thinkers. I want to believe them.  I don't want his first two years of college to be excellent prep for board games or game shows. His future is too important.