Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Practical lessons in politics

Students involved in Obama campaign, share his place in history

Freshmen at Constitution High School walk by cardboard cutouts of Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin yesterday. Many city schools used the election as a teaching tool.
Freshmen at Constitution High School walk by cardboard cutouts of Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin yesterday. Many city schools used the election as a teaching tool.Read moreDAVID MAIALETTI/Staff photographer

ASHLEY ROWELL is only 16, but she had the confidence of a politicized graduate student in early October when she walked to Barack Obama's campaign office at Kensington and Allegheny avenues, hoping to become a volunteer.

The Kensington High junior said that her enthusiasm for Obama remained sky-high even after the campaign office told her it had more than enough help.

"I just took that on the chin and started wearing my Barack Obama buttons to school anyway," Ashley said Monday. "I wish I was 18, so I could vote. Just from watching the debates, I want to put all my effort into getting his message out," she added.

Camillia McKay, a senior at Central High School, spent election morning on a class assignment - taking exit polls at Finletter Elementary, in Olney - though students had the day off from school.

She surveyed 10 voters, asking their opinions of the candidates and for whom they voted.

"I'm not going to lie to you, everybody on my list voted for Barrack Obama," said Camillia, 17, who also wished she could have voted for Obama.

"I was getting really upset - I wanted to walk in there and press the button," she joked.

Such enthusiasm proved to be the rule, not the exception, among the too-young-to-vote set in Philadelphia and in many other towns and cities.

Across Philadelphia, teachers used classroom discussions and mock elections and debates to instruct their students about democracy and voting.

Students and teachers said that interest was heightened by the historic fact of an African-American running on a major-party ticket.

"They recognize the importance of an African-American as president and what kind of message that sends and how far the country has come since the 1960s," said Steve Gilligan, who teaches advanced-placement U.S. government and politics at Masterman High School, in Spring Garden.

At Constitution High School, in Center City, students walking by the front office yesterday were drawn to life-sized, cardboard cutouts of Obama, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and the defeated Republican ticket of Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Some mugged with the candidates; others made wisecracks.

In Aisha Madhi's 11th-grade advanced-placement U.S. history class, the mood was more serious, as students spoke knowledgeably of the electoral college, of the candidates' talking points and of what Obama's victory meant to them.

"There's really no limit to what we can do now," said Todd Latimore, 16, of Nicetown. "Every barrier in this country has been reached. We've got an African-American as the president in a country that for 232 years has never had an African-American president."

Juliene Jimenez, 16, of North Philadelphia, said that he believed that Obama's victory would lead to "change for the stock market, the economy, hopefully in the war, and in taxation. Just complete change - but for the best."

For her part, Madhi wore a black-and-white-striped sweater to symbolize Obama's bringing people of different races together.

"It's just cool to see people around the world coming together," said Madhi, who for the first time also wore a President Obama button.

"It's official," she explained.

"I talked to a lot of kids today, and they all are saying that this gives them even more encouragement and more enthusiasm for the political process," said Tom Davidson, principal of Constitution High. "They realize that if Barack Obama can aspire to his dreams so can they."

At Masterman High, 239 students voted in a mock election, and the entire student body attended a debate featuring students standing in for Obama and McCain. Obama won the vote, 56 percent to 44 percent.

"The kids are excited about Barack Obama, a younger man running for president, who is different from President Bush. . . . They have latched on to this idea of hope," added Gilligan, who also chairs the school's social-studies department.

A record number of teens voted in the online National Student/Parent Mock Election, run by a Tucson, Ariz., nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

By election night, the Obama-Biden ticket had received 64.8 percent of the 4 million votes, McCain-Palin had 32.3 percent. The remaining 3 percent was divided among several third-party tickets.

In the Philadelphia School District's online mock election, Obama did even better. Of 2,673 votes cast, Obama received 82.9 percent, McCain got 14.8 percent, and a smattering of support went to third-party candidates Ralph Nader and Bob Barr.

Mike Horwits, who teaches social science at Central High, in Olney, said that his students conducted exit polls on Tuesday and are organizing a post-election "pundits panel" at school featuring representatives from local media organizations.

"From my standpoint, the interest level is at an all-time high - they are geared up, they feel a part of the process," said Horwits, who plans to use grant money from a civics program to take 20 to 30 students to Washington to attend Inauguration ceremonies on Jan. 20.

"I want him to stick by his word as far as change goes, because this country needs a lot of it," Ashley, from Kensington High, said of Obama. "Bring our troops back, and change things that need to be changed." *