Romney-289 Obama-109

By Editor | November 15, 2012 |

While adults in Vandalia were going to the polls last Tuesday for their part in electing this country’s president, students at Vandalia Junior High School were also casting ballots.

And there’s a good chance that many of the students were as educated – if not more so – than many of their adult voting counterparts.
That’s because Kim Schroeder’s eighth-hour social studies class did more than just hold a mock election – much more.
The election last Tuesday was simply the culmination of a project through which all of Schroeder’s social studies classes at VJHS learned about the presidential election, specifically, and the political process, in general.
This was at least the third time that Schroeder has had students participate in a mock election, including two times while serving as a student council sponsor.
This time, she said, she alerted her students about a month prior to the general election date that she wanted to have a mock election, as well as pre-election activities.
Schroeder believed that she would have to pick one of her classes for the campaigning portion of the project, and chose her eighth-hour class.
She told the students in that class of her plan, and that if they chose to take it on, “the first thing we would need is candidates (to represent Barack Obama and Mitt Romney).
“Right away, Alec (her son) said, “I’ll do it, I’ll be Romney,’” Schroeder said. Maddie Wilkerson agreed to act as Obama through the campaigning process.
She told potential candidates that they would have to be prepared to speak in front of the entire VJHS student body, and her son and Wilkerson said they could do it.
“I knew that I would have to divide the class into two teams, and they did that on their own,” she said. “They chose which side they wanted to be involved in, and it came out almost equal,” Schroeder said.
She gave them three weeks to work on the project, which included making campaign commercials and posters, and, finally, a debate between the Obama and Romney candidates.
One class even made Obama campaign buttons, Schroeder said.
“Each team had a campaign manager and a speech writer,” she said. “We try to do it just like the real thing.
“It’s student led, I just facilitate,” she said.
“I told them, ‘You have to go out and research your candidates, and I want everything to be factual for the debate.’
“They went out and did that research, on their own. It was so cool to see them doing that research, and to see how they were making each other do things the right way.”
While some social studies students were preparing for the debate, others worked on a voter’s guide, electoral map and other election projects.
Some of the classes would go through a chart that contained the issues in the presidential election.
“They knew what the issues were, and they discussed them – I was so impressed with that,” Schroeder said.
The project involved all students in the school.
They all had to register to vote, and they had to present those registration cards to election judges – who had lists of registered voters – in order to vote last Tuesday.
Schroeder wanted to make sure that the project prepared her students for the day when they would be casting ballots for real.
“Initially, when I talked to the students about the importance of being an educated voter, I stressed that they shouldn’t listen to their teachers, their friends or the media, that they need to do their own research,” Schroeder said.
Alec Schroeder and Wilkerson took to podiums last Monday for the debate, after social studies students had prepared questions pertaining to the issues in this year’s presidential race, and responses to those questions.
“They even came in on a Saturday to practice (for the debate),” Kim Schroeder said. “That’s how committed they were to doing this right.”
Schroeder had her students watch a couple of the debates, and as they did so, she realized that her project was a successful one.
“When one of the candidates said something that wasn’t true, someone would say, ‘Mrs. Schroeder, he’s lying.’”
Schroeder said she believes that the project “went really well.
“The students had some issues, but they were able to work them out on their own. That’s one of the things that I was so impressed with."

Students at Vandalia Junior High School flocked to the polls on Tuesday to cast their presidential ballots for the school’s mock election.

Kim Schroeder, social studies instructor at Vandalia Junior High School, introduces the candidates to the VJHS student body at the start of debate last Monday.

dential candidate Mitt Romney and Maddie Wilkerson was in the role of Democratic President Barack Obama.

Keith Carlock, a sixth-grader at Vandalia Junior High School, casts his ballot in the school’s mock election last Tuesday.

Students at Vandalia Junior High School listen to presidential candidate Mitt Romney (Alec Schroeder) respond to a question during the debate last Monday morning.