Sunday, September 09, 2012
A Political Season-Lessons Learned

The Republican and Democratic conventions have recently taken place. I hope that teachers are taking advantage of these historical events by teaching students of all ages using an interdisciplinary approach. Educators can teach students about the impact of media, social media, propaganda, speech writing and communication styles. There is absolutely a math, science, social studies and English lesson in the political process and I would hope that this very exciting series of events can be used as "teachable moments" for our students. It is also valuable to discuss with students the wide variety of jobs it takes to pull off these conventions. For example, police, secret service, security, stage hands, tech folks, custodians, food services, parking lot attendants, ticket attendants, gardeners, cashiers, vendors, camera folks, journalists, news reporters, and the list goes on... As we move further into the campaign process, there can be conversations about the series of debates that will take place between the presidential and vice presidential candidates. There are many Lessons Learned....during this Political Season..."real life" events teach "real life" skills!