NMS Students Choose Their Candidates In Preparation Of November 4

By Eliza Hallabeck

Newtown Middle School social studies teacher Oona Mulligan had a few questions ready to warm up her students like she always does, but the two questions written on the white board Thursday, October 16, asked students points about the upcoming presidential election.

“Why is it important to cast an informed vote?” Ms Mulligan said as she started the class.

Students wrote their answer on a sheet of paper.

“Where can we get the information we need before we vote?” Ms Mulligan posed as her second question.

Some of the students responded in class and shared information they had found when searching for the presidential nominees stances on issues.

A single vote can count, according to one student who pointed out that the last vote held in town for the extra $6 million for the Newtown High School expansion project failed by 26 votes.

Another student said voting is important because it gives a person a good reason to complain if their candidate does not win the election.

Students listed off watching commercials, watching the debates, reading newspapers, monitoring websites, listening to the radio, reading magazines and, if possible, watching candidates speak in person as good ways to do research before a presidential election.

Ms Mulligan warned students to be careful of believing biased information, like websites, commercials, and sometimes news organizations.

“I think what you have to do is surf around for a little bit,” said Ms Mulligan.

All of the students in Ms Mulligan’s seventh grade social studies classes have been reading about candidates to decide who they want to win the election. As a pre-election project, the students will be creating posters with slogans of their candidates and writing “Letters To The Editor” to hand in to Ms Mulligan.

She has been working in conjunction with language arts teacher Brooke Unger in cluster Seven Orange, because the focus for seventh grade students is persuasive writing.

“Choose the candidate you think will best support our country for the next four years,” said Ms Mulligan to her class. She warned undecided students to choose their candidate, because they would have less time to create their projects if they took a long time to decide.

As homework before starting the projects on Thursday, students had to fill out sheets on each candidate who is running for president and vice president this year. Ms Mulligan said she had the students do this rather than define themselves as a Republican or a Democrat, because she wanted them to focus on the issues that they agree with.

Each student investigated Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain, Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama, Democratic vice presidential nominee Senator Joe Biden and Republican vice presidential nominee Governor Sarah Palin. After viewing multiple sources on each candidate, the students filled out where the nominees stand on issues like climate change, government reform, national defense, scientific research, gun control, and others.

If the students wanted to look into another issue not listed in the packets, they had to get a parent’s permission and signature before they could do research on that subject.

To create the advertisements for the candidates, Ms Mulligan told her students to pay attention to what audience they want to market their candidate to.

“We are going to avoid mudslinging,” cautioned Ms Mulligan, as she laid out rules for the students to follow in their advertisements. She said mudslinging and other inappropriate campaign tactics lead to people casting uninformed votes.

Ms Mulligan told her students to keep the age, education, and income of their audiences in mind when designing their slogans and advertisements. She said she wanted them to keep in mind why people should vote for their candidate.

On Friday students arrived in class prepared to start working on their projects. First they drew the design for their advertisement and slogan on a small sheet of paper, before transferring it onto a larger one.

Sam Svensson, a seventh grade student, said he supports Senator Obama for president. “I think he has a better out look on things,” said Sam.

Senator Obama’s stance on taxes is one reason Sam choose him for his project. He said he agrees with cutting taxes for people who make less than $250,000 a year, which is one idea Senator Obama has been endorsing.

Sam said he also agrees with Senator Obama’s ideas for dealing with the economy.

“On the note of the economy,” Sam said during class while he worked on his campaign slogan and advertisement for Senator Obama, “we of course know that it is in a crisis right now.”

Senator Obama will help solve the crisis in two ways, according to Sam. By endorsing new energy concepts, Senator Obama will create more jobs and save money in the future, Sam said.

“He also promises to get us out of Iraq by 2010,” said Sam, “and he is also planning on converting from oil to natural sources of energy.”

As a cluster Ms Mulligan said Sam was in the majority in supporting Senator Obama. The total number of supporters for Senator Obama in Cluster Orange were 57 students, Senator McCain had 20 total students supporting him and 6 students were still undecided, by the end of the day on Friday.

Matt Bara who was sitting with Sam while they worked on their projects in class said he supports Senator McCain for president.

“I do agree with some of Obama’s ideas,” said Matt, “but I mostly agree with McCain.”

Matt said he particularly likes Senator’s McCain’s stance on the energy crisis, which includes expanding alternative energy and taking action immediately to decrease America’s dependence on foreign oil.

Dana Shaw said she supports Senator Obama’s tax plan along with Sam.

“I also support Obama because he cares about his family a lot,” said Dana.

She added that she was impressed by Senator Obama’s plan to end the war in Iraq, because she said she knows what it is like to have family serving in the area and the feeling of wanting them back.

“I like that in 2004 he stated that he wanted change,” said Dana, “and he wasn’t even running for president then. He just really wants change.”

Ms Mulligan said all of the students enjoyed talking about the issues of this presidential election.

“One student said that he started as an Obama fan,” said Ms Mulligan, “but after looking at the issues he said he was a McCain fan.”

She had her students research the ideas and concepts of the issues, because, Ms Mulligan said, she wanted them to know the specifics and not the general ideas behind both candidate’s campaigns.

November 4 may be election day for voters, but NMS students, along with Cluster Seven Orange, will be voting in their homerooms for a mock election on the morning of October 31. All of the individual homerooms have been assigned a state, and whichever candidate wins in the homeroom will be given the electoral votes assigned to their state.

Students in Cluster Seven Orange will have their advertisements ready to display before the mock election on Halloween.

“You need the specifics to really understand who is going to help you out,” said Ms Mulligan.