A12
The Chronicle Herald
SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Getting out the student vote
By Megan Power
Joseph Robichaud Photography
Shelley Morse is president of the
Nova Scotia Teachers Union.
Celebrating
teachers
worldwide
By Megan Power
In 1994, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) designated October 5 as an annual
celebration of the valuable work
done by 30 million teachers in
Canada and around the globe.
World Teachers’ Day was the
brainchild of a former Canadian
teacher, the late Norman Goble.
In many countries, including
our own, this crucial profession
does not receive the respect and
support it deserves, UNESCO
says. World Teachers’ Day calls
attention to the need to raise the
status of the profession and acknowledge the indispensable role
teachers play in building the
future.
“Teachers are not valued in
society like they used to be when
I was a child,” notes Nova Scotia
Teachers Union president Shelley
Morse. “We see other professions
have increased in value, but not
teachers.”
The theme for this year’s World
Teachers’ Day is ‘Pillars of Democracy’ and the Canadian Teachers’
Federation (CTF) is stressing the
democratic practices teachers
instill at an early age.
“Democracy was gained in
Canada through sacrifices made
by our veterans, and it’s vital that
this tradition be carried on by
teachers,” Morse says.
CTF’s ‘Hear my Voice’ campaign, in place since last February, was developed to highlight
teachers’ far-reaching influence
and to promote their role in a
political democracy.
“In a healthy democracy, decisions should be grounded in
respectful consultation and ongoing dialogue with all sectors of
society,” Morse says.
Morse reiterates the vital role
that teachers play. “Teachers
promote the importance of democracy and explore with students
the importance of being actively
engaged citizens,” she says.
“Through hands-on learning programs, like Student Vote, teachers
can engage students to be pillars
of democracy in action.”
Taylor Gunn, the Toronto-based
founder of Student Vote (a highprofile national learning project
that helps schoolchildren across
Canada participate in mock elections in real time) says that,
“Teachers are the most important
group of Canadians that can, will
and are impacting the future of
democracy. No one else is engaging kids in the democratic process.”
“There’s a much greater emphasis placed on employability in
our educational system, but public education needs to emphasize
the skills of citizenship too,”
Gunn says, admitting, “it’s hard to
measure those skills on standardized tests.”
“Teachers are the most important figures in our democracy right
now and that learning doesn’t
come out of a textbook. It comes
out of a teacher’s enthusiasm,”
Gunn says.
The NSTU is a member-organization of CTF, an alliance of nearly
200,000 elementary and secondary educators from 17 organizations across Canada. CTF and the
NSTU are also members of the
international body of teachers,
Education International.
Starting this school year, Lynn
Abbass moved to a new school
and a new grade—Grade 5 at
Sydney River Elementary—and
she wanted to try something new
she heard about from a colleague:
the Student Vote program.
Student Vote is a charitable,
non-partisan national organization that runs parallel elections to
those taking place municipally,
provincially and federally. Teachers are supplied with all the necessary materials to inform students about the issues and the
tools they need to run their very
own election, allowing students
to consider and vote for the same
candidates as adults.
One of the first things Abbass
did with her Grade 5 class of 30
students was test their understanding of local politics. It
turned out that only one child in
the class could name the premier.
She then assigned homework in
the form of active media consumption: watch the political
leaders’ debate on TV and be
prepared to talk about it in class.
“The next day in class we
spoke about the debate for 30
minutes, and the discussion was
magical,” Abbass says. “It created
conversation in the classroom,
and conversation at home as
well.” Feedback from parents and
guardians has been extremely
positive, she says.
Later, the class prepared questions to ask the candidates, who
visited the school to answer in
person.
“The students’ questions were
so well prepared, and the candidates were very impressed! I was
so proud of them. This experience has opened up the walls of
the classroom and brought the
students to a whole new level of
learning. My students are excited
to vote, and that’s something I
want to continue to do for all
future students with the help and
support of Student Vote,” she
says.
Timothy Halman, who teaches
at Prince Andrew High School in
Dartmouth, has had a similarly
superlative experience implementing the Student Vote program with his students. Halman
participated in the program in
2011 for the federal election and is
now using it to help students
engage with provincial elections
as well.
“As educators we have a responsibility to help kids understand that their community is
their responsibility,” Halman
explains. “I really enjoy this program and I’m totally committed to
it. I can just see that spark with
my students.”
“From a teaching point of view,
it’s been amazing. It’s an authentic
learning experience.”
With voter turnout currently
hitting historic lows, Halman
says, it’s exactly this kind of active instruction that’s imperative
for the future.
“This program is specifically
designed to reverse the trends
we’re seeing at provincial and
federal levels,” Halman says. “It’s
disheartening to see the statistics
- you have to have an engaged
citizenry. The greatest threat to a
democracy is people who don’t
care.”
“As a parent and as a teacher, I
want schools to emphasize literacy, and civic literacy is part of
that,” Halman says.
As his students head to the
polls for the mock election, Halman says he is extremely pleased
with the impact the Student Vote
program has had on his students.
When candidates visited his
school, the discussion was extremely vibrant, he notes. The
students brought up issues pertaining to mental health issues,
youth employment, and western
migration.
“I think a lot of kids feel like
politics is something that happens
on television, and this is how you
engage them - you make it real,”
Halman said.
“These students are our future
voters and we need to provide the
tools and resources for them to
understand the abstract concept
of democracy and government,”
Halman says.
Taylor Gunn, founder of Student Vote, created the program
based on a similar concept he’d
read about in the United States.
Schools’ participation is com-
Contributed
Lynn Abbass teaches Grade 5 at Sydney River Elementary.
Contributed
Timothy Halman teaches at Prince Andrew High School.
pletely voluntary, and, ten years
into Student Vote’s existence,
“We’re on track for our best numbers yet for Nova Scotia. We think
we can surpass them,” Gunn
shares.
“The secret to the program is
the teachers. They do the work.”
Gunn says. “It’s a neat model and
it has momentum.” With more
than 230 schools registered in
Nova Scotia it’s clear teachers see
the value in the program and
share it with colleagues, he adds.
“You’re teaching about real
issues in real time and when the
kids can compare their own results to the actual results, it’s em-
powering,” Gunn says.
In Canada, we enjoy a comparative ease that we must never
forget, he says. “Other people in
the world suffer through civil
wars to have the right to vote,”
Gunn notes.
Learn more about Student Vote
at: www.studentvote.ca