A fascinating experiment in democracy is in the works at Analy High School this week. The high school is hosting a Voter Information Night this evening, Tuesday, Oct. 20, from 6 pm to 8 pm, staffed by seniors from the school’s Government classes.
For the last several weeks, groups of teens in those classes have been doing a deep dive into the 14 propositions on the state ballot, as well as the state-level candidate races.
“The goal is for the attendees to leave the event feeling like they can make an informed decision,” said teacher Rachel Ambrose, one of three teachers involved in the project. “A few of the propositions are particularly confusing, and we want to help with that.”
Students were assigned the propositions and candidates randomly, Ambrose said. Teachers divided the students into small groups ranging from three to eight people, and each team produced a project, explaining the pros and cons of each item on the ballot.
“What I love is the emphasis was on being nonpartisan, making sure you provided balanced information. We want to attract everyone. We don’t want it to feel like anybody has an agenda,” Ambrose said.
All of the students involved came from Jason Carpenter’s and Melissa McLaughlin’s senior Government classes. Rachel Ambrose’s Ethnic Studies students also did analyses of the propositions from an ethnic studies perspective.
There won’t be any formal public presentations tonight. Instead, students will set up at stations around the library and cafeteria. They’ve created trifold posters devoted to each proposition and candidate, with pro and con arguments for each. Each team will be standing by their project and will happily explain the ins and outs of each ballot question to visitors.
Students did a dry run for the public event yesterday when the school held a mock election for underclassmen. Before students voted, they wandered through the rows of posters created by the seniors, trying to get a sense of who and what they should vote for.
Teacher Jason Carpenter said this is the third time the school has done this project. He thinks it’s a great exercise on so many levels.
“We, as a staff, are very much committed to pushing back on the cynicism that exists in our society and exists in young people—which is to say, ‘There’s nothing that I can do. It doesn’t really matter. All the politicians are the same.’ All of that kind of stuff. So, you know, the idea that living in a democratic society requires participation, and that what you do, and what you say, and what you believe, and what you advocate for actually does make a difference—that is one of the foundational pieces of it.”
“Another is our commitment to civil discourse, which is that when you live in a plural society that’s healthy, you engage with people who believe in things that you don’t believe in,” Carpenter said. “We’re very much committed to being nonpartisan conversation starters and engaging all people. That’s another one of the foundational pieces of it”
“The final one would be that we have so few opportunities for students here to directly interact with the community. Whenever we have an opportunity where it is ready-made for young people and community member interaction, we want to take advantage of that.”
He said he’s been inspired by Ambrose’s ability as a teacher to find ways to connect her students with the broader community. “Rachel, she is a master at this,” he said. “She has a lot of programs where she sends her kids out into the public space and interacts with people. We’re just trying to follow suit and to do that because we think it’s important.”
Analy student Cambree Hardy got to both create a poster and vote in the mock election because she’s enrolled in Ambrose’s ethnic studies class, which has students from all grades.
In terms of creating her group project on the issue of election integrity, she said, “It was a lot of researching different perspectives in order to gain as much information as we could, and also using official websites.”
As a participant in the mock election, she said each voter was given “a little packet that helped us organize all our notes and the pros and cons.”
“We did like a gallery walk of all of them [the posters], and then we got to hold our own mock ballot and vote,” she said. “I think it was a really good representation and a way to kind of set the expectations for what elections will be like once we can vote.”
“I personally found it really interesting,” Hardy said. “I care a lot about my ability to vote in the future, and I'm very motivated towards it, so it connected with me really well.”
Lawson Gaylord, an Analy student and a regular reporter for the Sebastopol Times, also voted in the mock election.
“The mock election was super informative and an incredible learning experience,” he said. “It was super cool to see fellow students standing next to a poster about the proposition or candidate they researched, telling my peers everything they needed to know. While I was filling out my ballot, I wasn't sure about one of the propositions. I asked one of the students standing next to me, and it turned out that they were one of the group members who had put together the poster about that ballot measure. They went super in-depth and told me everything I needed to know.”
Gaylord said that having student voter guides and realistic-looking ballots “really tied the experience together into more than just a class activity.”
“Not only did we all learn so much, but it felt like we were participating in an actual election, being part of democracy and making the choices that felt right to us,” he said.
You can be a part of this experiment in democracy by attending Analy’s Voter Information Night tonight, Tuesday, Oct. 20, from 6 pm to 8 pm at the Analy High School library and cafeteria. Honestly, it sounds way more fun than sitting down alone at your kitchen table with the Voter Information Guide.
This story made my morning. I can imagine that an exercise like this might change how a few approach voting for the duration. Brilliant teaching and learning. Kudos to Analy teachers and students!
This is fabulous in so many ways. I would love to see how the Analy Student Body voted. Will there be a follow up Sebastopol Times?