The first step of this project was to study patriotism. We as a class compared with each other in group activities what we viewed as patriotism by images. Ranging from pictures of our military, as well as pictures involving slavery, we had to determine whether or not we found them patriotic based on the time period, which resulted in conflict, but ultimately a better understanding and respect for each other’s opinions.
Shortly after we took an “I Side With” test on who we agreed with politically. Some of the candidates weren’t even known as they were third party members, yet soon the class would be informed on them as well. It helped us get a better understanding of our own views before engaging in a political project.Next we started writing “letters to the president”, the test helped some of us find our largest issues. The letters would be submitted to a nation-wide competition conducted by KPBS where we focused on an issue we wanted our president to fix. This was to expose us not so much to the election, but simply to what we’re passionate about. What our main issue within our country is that we want our president to fix. Unfortunately while a student in HTHI did not win, we still all gained important knowledge, and a better understanding of not only why the topics we chose are issues, but how to fix them.
My issue was the criminal justice system, and how it’s flawed. How I fear working in the criminal justice system if it means defending someone who did do something wrong, or imprisoning someone innocent. Below is my letter, underneath are the rough drafts before it and our template/worksheet:
Campaign Team Debate Presentation
The project would start with everyone getting into four groups of twelve, each assigned one president. Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein. The names of the candidates we received were drawn randomly out of a hat. Within each group there were multiple jobs; three for focusing on the president’s plan for economy, three for foreign policy, three for social. The remaining three would be one person to act and dress as the president, one for the vice president, and the campaign manager; which was my job.
I was assigned to Donald Trump, and as the campaign managers, all our teacher kept telling us was “you run the show”. We had to make exhibition night run smooth, make sure each of our representatives knew where they were supposed to be, and study the issues for ourselves as well. We coached our president and vice president on their mannerisms, acting, and even went over their speeches.
To practice our debating skills, we had debates where we represented past presidents if they were to debate each other on who’s better. My team won both debates together, we all coached each other, supported each other, took notes together, and ultimately had a blast all the way through. It brought us together and made us fast, efficient workers. We’d leave the room like co-workers leaving work saying, “good work today, so-and-so.” it was a fun thing for my team and the others as well, being able to support and be there for each other doing a project all of us put our hearts into.
Originally, campaign managers were the coaches for everyone else and were supposed to help and manage everyone through. However we were eventually asked to write our own opening statements and debates for Climate Change on behalf of our Biology class. Below is my speech and some notes I wrote for myself:
Truth Campaign Ads
One of the steps of the project was to create truth campaign ads to go against the rhetoric of either lying to talk yourself up as a candidate, or talking down another candidate in your ads. Below is our fact checking worksheet that we created before making the video, which we used to show the positives and negatives of our candidates, Donald Trump.
Following this, we made our video, below is the finished product of our truth campaign based on Trump's vision and character:
Along with this, we made an infographic to go along with the video:
Exhibition:
Voter Info. Night was held November 3rd so that if parents and members of the community were paying close attention, our resources could help them decide on who and what to vote for, some we even convinced to vote despite saying they wouldn’t at all. On the 7th, the day before the election, we held a school-wide, “town hall debate”. Each representative from each candidate and issue would debate against the other three in front of the school to get their candidates ideas out there.. Below are some images:
Reflection
This project taught me a lot about how much my vote means when I’m old enough to participate. It’s not that I shouldn’t vote, it’s that I need to really check if what politicians say is true or not before making a decision. For example, when doing this project and fact checking Trump, about 14% of what he said while running was true. It was stressful watching an election where the candidates weren’t always telling the truth, but what I learned from it was that myself and others need to invest some of our time just scrolling through politifact.com and other resources instead of just believing everything the candidate we support tells us.
Aside from the educational parts of this assignment, the most challenging part of it all was removing my own personal opinions from the project. Some of what I knew beforehand was factual, and I kept that knowledge and used it in the project, but my own biases for or against candidates I had to remove in order to be completely committed in this project. I also learned more about my peers and school environment. I got a better understanding of why people feel the way they do about certain controversies, and I’ve learned to take those into consideration. When i was assigned to the campaign team I was, I knew with all of the controversy around Trump I’d need to walk into it with an open, clear mind. With what I learned from my research, and the other three teams research opened my mind and eyes to what subjects I value the most, and have even driven me to consider pursuing a later career in activism and politics. Because of the results from the election, I am concerned about social progression slowing down or ending in the U.S.. I don't want to assume anything negative about Trump's presidency because it hasn't started, but due to the comments he made during the election, I can't help but worry. However, the silver lining is that this will push me towards being more involved in the progression and activism in my life and possibly future career.