to brainwash or not to brainwash, that is the question

[miss_swamp]

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of uncoached debate
or to take arms against a sea of troubles by just being blatantly anti-Bush among 11-year-olds ...

um, or something like that.

They're only fifth-graders, but we still need to talk about the election. Of course we do, so they'll know why I'm crying and wearing black next Wednesday.

Anyway. There are five groups, each researching the differences between Bush and Kerry on a different issue. They also have to read generic biographies from Scholastic News (remember them?). So more than one kid read the Kerry bio and then didn't want to read the Bush piece because "he's stupid."

To which the correct response is, of course: "And if you read the article, then you'll be able to tell your parents and everybody exactly why he's stupid."

And then if they don't understand the gory details, explain, using words like "unfair" and "mean."

It's only the truth, right?

Comments

[dreamline.livejournal.com]

Back when I was in 5th or 6th grade our teacher gave us a list of issues and we had to pick the ones we agreed with. The results were then tallied up and it was revealed which issues belonged to which candidate. It was a good exercise for kids to look at the issues instead of the candidate and any preconceived notions about the candidates they may have gleaned from parents and the media.

[miss-swamp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wanted to do something like that but all the pre-made ones I could find were too hard for my kidlings and I got too busy to make my own. But I figured since most of their parents can't vote anyway, they might not have been subject to quite as much brainwashing at home. So that's my job.

[dreamline.livejournal.com]

Why can't their parents vote?

[miss-swamp.livejournal.com]

80% of them are immigrants.