09/15/2024
Some of you may know and some of you may not know that my bachelors is in social studies education.
My favorite subject to teach outside sociology is American Government . I’ll talk government but I won’t talk politics.
When I see kids at school and they’re wearing things it says it’s their 18th birthday, I tell them to vote. To make sure they’re registered to vote.
As teachers we cannot and most of the teachers that I know do not tell kids how they’re going to vote. But, we do have a responsibility to teach kids how to think, not what, and that their vote matters.
Does it matter to me how they vote, it does. But I cannot tell them what their vote or voice should be.
This year we have a first time voter who happens to be female in our home. She watched half of the debate with me last week and I showed her how to look up and determine if a website or news organization is right in the center of bias and how to go and look for the fact checking. What really made me proud was the fact that when she was sitting there at the dinner table one night her father told her who she would vote for, she straightened up her back and she looked straight at him and said “Dad, I’m an adult and I will vote for who and what I want to. “ I was so proud of her.
Now with all that said, we have the possibility for two ways for our election to be historic.
Should former President Trump be elected, it will be the first time since 1893 that we had a president there’s a was elected one term, not elected the following term, and then reelected the next term. He will historically be ranked with Grover Cleveland.
Should Vice President Harris be elected, she will be the first woman president and she will be the daughter of two immigrants making her a first generation American.
I’ve already seen a lot of things that are posted whether you are for or against either candidate. This is an emotional election with a lot of issues that bring forth a lot of emotion. One of the things that I teach students, whether I’m in a Government class or in English class, is that you have to know both sides of the coin to make your argument. That shows that you are educated about the issues and can see both sides and you can counter argue.
I think where I’m going with this is that, I would like to see things that are not demeaning to either candidate or two other individuals that you are “friends” with on Facebook or any social media. And that because we have a democracy, you do have the right to vote the way you want to vote whether it’s for a candidate or for an issue. Your vote does matter. Whether you agree with the electoral college system or not, it is what is in place.
Back in the early 90s, there was a gentleman on a Donahue show named Drew T Brown and he specifically made a statement, “we do not have freedom of speech but we have a responsibility of speech. “ There was a young lady in the audience, about 17, and she reminded him that it is also how you say things. There’s a lot of nasty stuff out there and I challenge people to be not a part of that nasty stuff. There’s entirely too much hate rhetoric in our world that we need to think before we speak or type or send. I know for some of you it’s hard to believe that I’m saying that because I do lack of filter a lot of the times, but on this particular matter we need to be more conscious of how we’re saying things, who were saying things to, and what the consequences are.
