Grade 9 Politics

"A funny thing happened before, during and after the Alberta provincial election in my Grade 9 Social Studies class; engagement.

I personally love politics. The games that are played, the staging of platforms, and the race to convince a democratic population to drop their very important ballot in favour of a regime that offers the prospect of formulating a system that mirrors your personal outlook. However, I'm not too naive to believe that the majority of adolescents (in my own experiences), either don't care or don't see how politics can impact their own lives. So I took on the challenge to turn a curriculum that predominantly sees 'yawns' into a series of lessons that were relevant. I mean, the real life connections were happening in every corner of this province that I would've been doing students, and future voters, a disservice.

I don't view the Social Studies curriculum as content driven (although standardized testing obviously does). Rather, I view it as a curriculum that can connect students with the appropriate information and tools to be active citizens within their own country. A chance to understand the Canadian democratic system and values in a era where younger voters are missing from the polls. Providing students with the information to be active citizens before they can legally participate in the process can only do ALL Canadians, the future of the province and the nation justice.

Before the upcoming Alberta election on May 5th, I held an in-depth discussion with all of my classes to identify the dissconnect between students and politics. Their answers were very straight forward; they felt that politics did not impact their lives. I then asked what they really wanted to know about Canadian politics and the election process. Their answers blew me away, this one in particular;

"Mr. Lowe, I've always found politics scary. Mostly that fact that I find people (adults) who are having political conversations intimidating. I don't know how to get involved in a discussion without somebody telling me I don't know what I'm talking about or this is over my head."

- anonymous student

So began the process of deconstructing politics for the purpose of students being able to get involved in a meaningful conversation at school and at home. We started with brainstorm of political parties that are represented in our area (what signs do you see on side of the road?). Once we were familiar with the party names and figures, we broke down their platforms. But not in a generalized manner. We looked into how platforms impacted the lives of students; education, healthcare, taxes, post-secondary, daycare, and most importantly, how the handling of the oil industry would impact their lives at home. Students started making personal connections to political decisions. This led to a vote.

Over the course of two days (6 separate classes), we held a St. Joe's Grade 9 Provincial Election. A chance for students to vote for the party that they felt would impact their lives the most. Honestly, we wanted to see if our results mirrored the actual thoughts of Albertans. Here is how our democratic process broke down:

135 Students voted in our mock election

NDP = 37 %

LIB = 23 %

PC = 20%

WR = 9 %

AP = 4 %

GP = 4 %

Spoiled = 3 %

Students spoke out the same way Albertans did in this past election. We compared our results with the actual numbers the Wednesday after and had great discussions. Most students commented that the NDP had one chance and that if they deviated too much, Albertans would never give the 'Orange Crush" another chance.

Most students were extremely excited to have been involved in real life learning. Understanding platforms and how these impacted their lives directly or through their parents. Quite a few students came to school exclaiming that they had watch CBC's coverage of the election with their parents, discussing the pros and cons of potential results. I think what was most rewarding for students is that they didn't learn what the PAT would ask of them, but rather they mattered in an adult conversation with their parents at the dinner table. Politics were no longer scary because they understood.

I admit it was difficult to remain objective and not indoctrinate certain values, but it was easy to instill the values of the democratic process and watch the maturation of future Canadian citizens.