In The Shower

Got this idea when i was in the shower

to teach politics, let the students run for a presidential election

sounds simple enough

many of my friends has problems in this topic because they lack the necessary jargon or lexicon in the topic, like socialism, liberalism, secularism, etc

a simple and engaging way to let them learn is through an election.

let me explain

a lecture style of half hour before lessons to teach and half hour to discuss.

Step 1: make sure you have at least 5 weeks, preferably 10 weeks, to play around with the syllabus.since it can be used to encompass many topics like ethics, science, politics, government, singapore identity, blah blah blah, it is justifiable to use that much time, i think. i dunno

step 2: split the class up into 2 halves, preferably 10 on each side. either simply use just split them into halves by their seating arrangement, or let them do a questionnaire on political ideology, like abortion, pro or anti, that kind of thing, which i think is better.

Step 3: nominate a presidential candidate, among other positions. this can be done by students completely or to speed things up, the teacher nominate 3, ask for any additional volunteers then the individual groups, hereby called parties, vote for their own candidate.

Step 4: choose the other positions, obviously the other students also need to do some work. so they could either decide themselves or let the teachers decide.

they will preferably have jobs that either suit their personality or strengths OR clashes with them, putting them outside their comfort zone. jobs include,

(i'm avoiding the departments so that the individual students do not further segregate themselves.)
Campaign Manager- basically a leader, inconsistencies or problems will be referred to him
Organizer- Any event, i.e rallies, fundraiser, speeches, explained later, will be planned by this guy. justifies each and any event that the party wants to organize.
Press secretary- writes and monitors public reaction through the media.
Account manager- writes any justifications for spending or earning
Publicist- separated into 2 different forms of campaigning, getting the message across and negative campaigning, such as smears.

each job is taken by 2 people. for most writing exercises, what they need to do is write up on various campaigning that the party plans to do. so essentially, each person write around 1-2 page as to why certain actions should be taken when things happen, which as the teacher, you make happen, using the simple AREEC structure, as a guideline.

and for added fun, you can compile all the write ups and make it a report!

so naturally things must happen throughout the election to keep things interesting. for the US 2008 elections, the economy crashed, so that was interesting to watch. i think the teacher can "organize" several interesting things to happen like maybe radical teens riots across western states, for example. so each candidate must think of ways to tackle the problem without compromising the votes.

i think the natural way that it should end is with a "televised" presidential debate. send out an open invitation to anyone who is remotely interested to watch. write several questions and watch the presidential candidates argue it out. let the team prepare for maybe a week, but then again can you ever really prepare for anything televised.

There should only be a population of 1 person, who is the teacher who ultimately decides who wins, based on thier performance and/or policies. of course the teacher can make up statistics on the fly to reflect an actual voter base, just to give the students an idea of how and who to target for more votes.

just the overview, not very simple but hey its' cool.

for the actual lessons, as an average, if each class is given 3 hours per week, in 1 hour lessons, the first lesson can be a lecture of a particular topic, followed by certain probing questions like, should any government act like this? for example. the 2nd lesson should be a fake newspaper article that shows like certain trends or events that has happened, like the israel conflict, along with the aftermath of the actions they took last week, and then give them time to work out what actions they want to take. the 3rd lesson can be handing up of the report at the start of the lessons, and then a comprehension practice, preferably on the same topic. then corrections will be gone through the 3rd lesson of next week and so on.

i think many questions that they will ask themselves during the discussion will be AQ like questions, but thats just my guess.

this is a rough idea whiteboard that i have. obviously there are many loopholes and problems that i, due to tiredness and lack of will to write, failed to recognize. to the future me, if i ever become a teacher, keep this in mind.




In my future home, there will definitely be a giant whiteboard for me to put my ideas.


oh yeah, and some people from my school went to shave HER head for charity. i quite respect her for that even though i don't really know who she is. i like to think i would have gone if i had some friends to do it with me. i realised that many or the moral decisions i make depends on whether it's convenient for me or not, even though i REALLY REALLY want to do it. for example, i want to donate my organs when i die and i want to donate blood now when i'm still young. i never really found like any event or like roadshow promoting it, ever, just a lot of flag days and tin cans.

i'm gonna tell jelena now.



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