Students get chance to cast their votes
They may be young, but Shelby Engele’s grades 4 and 5 students know what matters to them.
Armed with knowledge and a pencil, the nine- and 10-year-olds voted in their first-ever election on Tuesday at St. Timothy School, a mock precursor to Wednesday’s municipal election.
Classrooms across the province followed suit, part of the national Student Vote program.
“I just listened to what (the candidates) were saying … I just check-marked them, which ones sound the best,” Grade 4 student Brody Sauer said, describing his process.
Sauer was nervous about his first election, but he wasn’t the only one.
He and many of his classmates brought a looseleaf list of their choices into the voting booth, to keep track of who’s who — between five mayoral candidates, three for council and 18 for school board.
These were not hastily cast ballots. The students have been talking about the election since school began almost two months ago.
They’ve learned about “the candidates, the people who are running for mayor, Ward 10, Ward 6, all those wards. And what their promises are,” said Ebenezer Deekor, in Grade 5.
This being a Catholic school, the students voted for up to seven of the candidates running for the atlarge separate school board.
While some of the students’ priorities aren’t specific campaign issues — they’d like a new water fountain, bigger classrooms, better Internet and more sports equipment — one is.
Nine-year-old Eva Haaland paid attention to candidates who “wanted less kids in each classroom.”
She said her 28-student class would benefit from “another teacher in the class, like one that helps the main teacher.”
“Lots of them said ‘there are too many kids in this room and one of you,’ ” said Engele, remembering an hour-long in-class discussion prior to the election. “They would love to have an aide in there that could help them out. They would also love to have books from the library that aren’t falling apart.
“They would love to have a community that really, really cares about them. That’s a majority of what we talked about, was how much this would affect our community when they’re voting for their school board trustees.”
The students were glad to have their say, and were surprised by the electoral process.
“I thought it was going to be hard but it was actually easy. It’s just doing checkmarks and stuff,” said Xiane Ringor, Grade 5. “When I turn 18, I’m really going to vote so people can make the world a better place.”
Haaland referred to suffragettes in impressing voter responsibility: “A lot of people fought to be able to vote … Women weren’t allowed to vote.”
Through this exercise, Engele hopes her students will become informed voters in the future.
“When they’re 18 and there’s an election coming up, they can remember, ‘Oh, in Ms. Engele’s class we voted once and I remember that feeling,’ ” said Engele.
“They’re such a great age when they believe that change is totally possible, and it is. And if they’re able to understand that, they could really make a difference as they get older.”
On Thursday, the students will compare their mock election results to those of the real election.