Presidential Preparations

Laura Joy Phillips

Once every four years, the American Government and U.S. History classes at Dalat set up a miniature version of the presidential election, which includes debates and the final vote. The whole school is invited to watch the debates, and students from grades 7-12, as well as the staff, will be allowed to vote. This year, due to curriculum changes, the American Government class will manage the project by itself, and preparations have already begun.

On Monday, September 26, Mr. Sasse, the American Government teacher and overseer of the event, divided the class into groups and assigned tasks. Two of the groups—representing Clinton and Trump—immediately threw themselves into research for the first presidential debate, which the whole class watched the following morning. They will continue to follow their assigned candidate’s actions and strategies in order to later present them to the school.

A third group, comprised of Josiah Brake (12) and Noah Graves (12), has chosen to represent Gary Johnson, but they must first collect forty-five signatures (including those of at least ten staff members) before their candidate will be allowed into the debate. In the actual presidential race, Johnson did not make the threshold and therefore will not participate; however, the point of the Dalat elections is not to merely reenact what is going on. In fact, in the two previous elections held at Dalat, McCain and Romney won instead of Obama. When asked why his group decided to go through the effort of representing Johnson despite the extra work required, Graves (12) said, “it is important to have a third party represented so that it adds variety to the debate, and it is not the same old things that we've all heard already.”

The remaining students in the class have been split into two groups, which are competing to see who can come up with the best way to organize the voting process, which includes distributing 538 electors among the students and staff eligible to vote in the Dalat presidential election.

This project not only teaches the students conducting it, but it also encourages the school to be more aware of current and upcoming events. The rest of the school will hear more about this as the election itself draws nearer, but until then, people can do their own research and thinking to develop their positions. The Dalat presidential election is an important reminder to engage with what's happening in the world, to evaluate multiple sides of a debate, and to exercise critical thinking.