The Election May Be Over, But the Real Work Has Just Begun

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The Election May Be Over, But the Real Work Has Just Begun

Tuesday, 04 November 2008 09:02

This election was one of the most intense campaigns in recent memory. There are multiple ways to follow the election and see what made people vote they way they did.

One of the sites, called What's At Stake in Election 2008, was developed by journalism students at the four major journalism graduate schools in the nation supported by the Carnegie and Knight Foundations. It is a deep, rich site with hundreds of resources for teachers in social studies and English classes.

Here are just a few of the important issues that the voters faced this year that are on the Web site:

new voters
old fears
immigration issues
the Obama factor
the American Dream
the youth vote
the environment

Another way to look into why people voted the way they did is at the Letters to the Next President Web site, written by teenagers from around the country in the last two months. There are thousands of letters there from students around the country on political, social, and environmental issues. That Web site, sponsored by the National Writing Project (NWP), gave students an opportunity to be heard on a national forum. Now teachers have an opportunity to show their students what other students around the country were thinking about the issues.

The Letters to the Next President program also has a three-minute video on YouTube that shows students around the country talking about the political, social, and environmental issues that are most important to them. If you are looking for student view points on a particular topic, there is a built-in search bar that allows users to search by topic. My students have been particularly concerned about environmental issues and California's Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage issue. Users are able to narrow by search and bring in diverse student opinion into class discussions easily by using the search feature. It is also easy to search by geographical area and see what students in other parts of the country are thinking.

The race for President may be over, but now the real work begins. We need to help students understand people's concerns from all over the country and take them into account as we work together as a nation to solve these problems. We cannot afford to forget the issues that drove this Presidential campaign and we need to help students stay involved and concerned.

Esther Wojcicki is the driving force behind the development of Palo Alto High School’s award-winning journalism program - the largest high school journalism program in the country. She focuses on assessing and improving student learning through low- and high-tech tools.

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Globalism
written by Joanne Jacobs, November 11, 2008

I just discovered your blog. I blog on education at joannejacobs.com.

Allison, now in her third year of law school at University of Chicago, was interviewed for an Indonesian TV documentary on political activism by students. She'd carved an Obama pumpkin for the yeswecarve.com site, which was started by friends of hers. It really is a flat (and talkative) world.

Latham & Watkins in Menlo Park offered her a job, so she'll be back in the area next fall.

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