The Middle School Diaries: If I was President for a day…

"This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in." -Theodore Roosevelt

Imagine if you were the United States President for a day, what would you do with all that power? I was curious to know how the students would respond to this prompt, but it wouldn’t be that easy to get responses from middle school students from South Central LA.

Challenge #2: Getting the Students to Write

As you know from my previous blog, my first challenge was to teach the concept of social justice to middle school aged children.  The solution to my problem? YouTube. Now the second challenge I encountered was to have the students write and turn in concrete work. Initially, some of them refused to do it. Others spoke to their friends as I was assigning the prompt. How was I going to reach them this time?

Solution:

YouTube again!

Hey, if it had positive effects the first time, why not try it out the second time.

Now hear me out. Think of an hour long activity that you have to partake in that is not necessarily appealing, but you know that you have to do it. It could be commuting to work, taking a class at the gym, or doing chores around the house.  What can you do to make that activity more bearable and even somewhat enjoyable so the time doesn’t seem that long?

Listen to music!

So I took this idea and applied it to my social studies class. Of course I couldn’t take just any song. It had to be appropriate, applicable, and appealing to the students.

Song Selections:

Star Spangled Banner performed by:

1) Whitney Houston

2) Mariah Carey

3) Beyoncé

4) Carrie Underwood

Assignment:

The students had to respond to the writing prompt by the end of the last song.

Modifications made:

The songs may have ignited interest towards the assignment, but it alone didn’t get the results. I had to physically walk around the room as they were writing and point to people’s papers to make sure they continued to write. For the students who were “stuck”, I had to provide examples given by other students, and to ease their anxiety I also reassured them that there were no right or wrong answers.

Results:

The students enjoyed the “entertainment” and were VERY honest with their responses to the writing prompt. The results differed according to grade level as well.

Sixth Grade Responses included but not limited to:

“Have a party in the White House”

“Meet Rihanna, Justin Bieber, 50 Cent, Chris Brown…”

“Have my own private jet and travel the world”

“Fix immigration papers”

Seventh Grade Responses were quite similar to sixth grade, but included:

“Help the poor”

“Save some money for myself”

“Fix immigration papers”

 Along with one student responding: “Have strong borders and have people who don’t belong here sent back to their country.”

Eighth grade responses varied:

“Paintball with the current and past presidents”

 “Help solve the clean water crisis”

“Have better programs to reform prisoners and gang members”

“End poverty”

“Provide more job opportunities”

 “Get rid of graffiti”

 “Bring our troops home”

“Fix immigration papers”

And my personal favorite: “Pay teachers more.”

My reactions:

1) Surprised. It’s understandable to have students at the age of 12-14 to desire fame, fortune, and have the perks of meeting their favorite celebrities. I mean Justin Bieber did perform for the President this past December and one of the seventh graders knew all about it. Yet, what surprises me the most is that a great deal of them want to fix immigration papers. Although the students did not specify who it was directed towards, I could only assume that A) Someone close to them needs papers. Or B) They were copying their classmates’ responses when I read out the examples earlier. 

Either way, that wouldn’t have been the first response I’d expect to hear from them, so as I read through their papers it really hit home for me. I have watched films such as Hecho en L.A. and Sin Nombre and went to Ellis Island and learned about the countless immigrants fleeing their native countries for new opportunities in America. Did I mention that my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles are immigrants as well? Yet new comers have always struggled and to hear these students mention similar things firsthand makes the struggles real and still prevalent today.

2) Hopeful. Developmentally, age definitely makes a difference in this case. The responses from each grade differed with sixth grade having more egocentric responses while seventh and eighth grade had more of a selfless and altruistic outlook towards the writing prompt. It’s comforting to know that for the most part they will grow and mature.  The eighth grade especially had remarkable responses and detailed paragraphs.  I’m curious to see how the students’ responses will differ when they are in college.

Ending thoughts:

I understand that being the President of the United States is one of the most powerful yet most stressful jobs to have on this planet because of all the responsibilities, problems, and people you have to deal with every day.  I can’t even fathom how it would be like to be president for a day because every action and decision I would make would not only affect me, but everyone else in this country. (Also, depending on the issue/problem at stake can even affect other nations as well.) That’s huge!  I, personally, would push for universal health care and also create more jobs but that’s another blog.

I was definitely impressed with how this lesson plan turned out and enjoyed reading the students’ responses. So what’s next?  Although this particular assignment only took 15-20 minutes to complete, I still had to teach for another 30-40 minutes. I couldn’t very well show them YouTube clips all day.

So what else was I going to do? Teach from the textbook? You know and I know, that wasn't going to happen. I was a student once and that isn't really effective. 

I guess you’ll just have to find out next week in The Middle School Diaries.