RPG: Role-Playing Government

While researching for a paper topic this past week, I came across an article that detailed a story of children learning about the government at an elementary school. The teacher in this class of young children was inspired by the election of Jimmy Carter, current President at the time, and decided to pose a mock election in her classroom. The teacher taught her students through a tedious process, explaining the process of nominating someone that would be a good candidate, teaching her students how to vote (without telling anyone who you voted for), and even explaining what a vote was.

With the election, the person with the most votes became president, the second most became vice president, and so on. This process seemed to work so well that the teacher continued it with a monthly election so that multiple students would have the chance at the presidency. Ultimately, these children were able to learn more about the who's, what's, and how's of the government. Parents of these children were stunned by how much their kids had learned about this complex ordeal. It also paid off for the classroom; as students took office, they took their title seriously and would step into the role as the leader of the classroom for the month. When the presidential position was given to a rambunctious child, the boy seemed to calm down and take his role seriously. This government role-play seemed to be very beneficial both to learn about something and also to maintain good role models for the classroom.

Cutting Back

This past week, I received some disturbing news from home; schools in the Des Moines area were facing serious budget cuts. The school's response was to cut back on the amount of time allotted to the art, music, and gym programs. By cutting the amount of time given to these courses, the administration reasons that they can then cut back on the number of teachers working.

My first concern was that the schools were cutting music programs since I will be licensed to teach music in just over a year. I was furious that the amount of time given to ensembles in a week was restricted because this meant that these musical ensembles wouldn't have an appropriate amount of time to rehearse. Music is something that is best rehearsed as an ensemble and cannot easily be given homework assignments outside of class time to complete. In addition to losing time, the decision was also made that the 5th and 6th grade band program would be cut entirely and students would not be able to begin until 7th grade. This sort of move could either eliminate the interest in band entirely, assuming that students find playing instruments "uncool" by the time they reach middle school, or turn into complete and total chaos when students from multiple elementary schools filter into middle school and decide they all want to sign up for the program. Teachers at this level would be given the responsibility of teaching an extremely large group of students that were more than originally bargained for while the high school music program would greatly decline in skill now that students are robbed of two years of learning. The end result, I fear, is an extinguished band program altogether.

Soon after realizing my fears for the music program, I found that the greater thing that I should be fearing is the elimination of time spent on physical education. Already, there is concern at the rate that obesity is rising in the children of America. Some schools believe that by simply taking out vending machines or changing the lunch menus will solve this, but I don't think that enough time has been spent looking at the physical education programs and how important they are to children. They are also key to elementary schools. Without gym programs for kids to get excess energy out of their systems, how do we expect them to focus and pay attention throughout the day? Everyone, no matter your age, needs at least some time to do something active to get the body moving and alert for the rest of the day to come! Cutting physical education programs is the absolute worst thing schools can do!