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| Mr.Shields's 3rd period History class in front of an electoral map. | 236.99 KB |
Top row from left to right: Sydney Hiester, Kayla Pexton, Ricky Moala. Second row: Jordann Wallentine, Delanie Mortensen, Shay Johnson, Camryn Rousse, Samantha Rasmussen. Bottom row: Jennifer Pizzaro.
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Giants or Patriots, who are you? This was the big question in Mr.Greg Shields’s U.S. History classes at SJHS. It's football season, and the tension is rising. According to Mr.Shields, this tradition of teaching about the electoral college system has been going on for about 12 years, and he plans to do this for the rest of his teaching career as long as he still teaches U.S. History. He started mock elections in Payson and has been doing it ever sense.
Mock elections are fake polls for the eighth graders to learn about the electoral college and to have a chance to participate in the system of voting. Andy Pendelton, eighth grader here at SJHS, said, “We do mock elections so we can understand the government and to be better prepared to vote soon.” Mr.Shields, said, “It’s important that students know what they will be voting about in the future.”
Some of the topics Mr.Shields's classes have talked about in the past are Coke vs. Pepsi, the Superbowl, Chevy vs. Ford and the actual presidential elections, like the ones coming up this November.
According to Justine Bernal, eighth grader here at SJHS, there was a lot of enthusiasm felt by all the students. People on rival sides were really into it and having fun. Andy said, “It was a fun learning experience, even though Mr.Shields played favorites!”
The scores were pretty far off from each other. In the electoral voting, the Giants had, 2,020 votes and the Patriots had 1,208. In the popular voting Giants had 199 and the Patriots had 107. That's quite a land slide!