Mocking the U.S. election
Clinton comes out on top in Naujaat student voting
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
NAUJAAT
The Grade 9 class at Tuugaalik High School oversaw its second major mock election this month in Naujaat.
Grade 8 students Bridgette Malliki and Emily Quanaq and student support assistant Lydia Haqpi, from left, cast their ballots during the mock U.S.A. election at Tuugaalik High School in Naujaat. - photo courtesy of Lloyd Francis |
Things were a bit different this year, because the Naujaat students were voting on the U.S. election.
Teacher Lloyd Francis said he decided to go ahead with the exercise again this year because the American election was so prominent in the news.
He said he wanted to stay with a current story a number of his students would have heard about.
"Some of the kids had been talking about the American election, and others kind of knew who the two candidates were because of what was going on in the media over Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump," said Francis.
"Since the Grade 9 students ran the election, they provided the deputy returning officer and the poll clerks.
"Students in Grade 7 to Grade 12 voted, as well as staff, and it was a landslide victory for Clinton."
Francis said there wasn't much difference between running an American or a Canadian election to the students.
He said many of the procedures were the same, as was the voting.
"There was more of an excitement when we did it last year because it really affected us more.
"But that remains to be seen, because we could be affected even more by the outcome of the American election.
"My students really enjoyed running the election, especially the feel of setting up and highlighting everybody's name as they came through the line.
"Everyone always enjoys counting the ballots at the end, after they've followed all the proper procedures of an election."
Francis spent some time leading up to the mock election talking to his Grade 9 students about some of the issues involved, and asked fellow teachers to do the same.
He said it was nice to know some of the students had a bit of background on the election before they came to vote.
"People here just thought Donald Trump was a little "out there," to put it mildly.
"Some students didn't really take that much interest in it, others found Trump to be a bit strange.
"They also saw the media being very pro-Clinton and very anti-Trump.
"We'll get into that more when we do a unit called media bias, so we just talked about it a little without going too deep into it."
Francis said his Grade 9 students felt the election went smoothly at the new high school.
He said being in a smaller school made it a lot quicker to get everyone through the stations to vote.
"We had everybody from kindergarten to Grade 12 last year, so there were a lot more students to deal with.
"It's a good exercise because it gets people to think about voting at an early age, and recent voter turnout in Canada, and in Nunavut, has been very, very low.
"I went into my war unit in social studies after the election and it fit hand-in-hand with people fighting for our freedom, and our right to vote and to democracy."
The students also held a mock parliament, which Francis said was a good way for them to talk about current issues.
He said a number of students enjoyed the exercise and got really into it.
"They liked the format because they, kind of, thought it was like arguing.
"We held it a week before the election, and mainly discussed how the federal government and the House of Commons are set up.
"We kept some of the issues in the mock parliament very localized, so we talked about having physical education in school every day during the cycle, making the school week shorter, and making cigarettes and snuff illegal in Canada."
