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Tomorrow will be a fun day (I hope). Elections are tomorrow! The kids are excited. At least 6 at Prom talked to me about elections Monday. Anyway, tomorrow is the day. They have final words, last media pieces, and the vote. I won't tell them who wins until Tuesday, heh heh. Then we'll have an election victory party and I will register them to vote for real!
Tomorrow is also the Olympics! One project I haven't elaborated on so far has been the Olympic Bid Simulation. I seriously think it's genius. The kids thought of it and I fleshed it out. Basically, we were talking about China and their olympic bid. China has a lot of human rights violations and environmental violations, which both go against the Olympic Charter. They have gotten a lot of international flack about those issues, causing some to doubt whether they should host the Olympics. The kids turned it into a simulation with some stiputlations. They could only pick a nation that is lesser developed (this would cause them to have to think beyond Britain, US, France, etc). This simulation goes straight to the heart of Comparative Government. They have to be able to argue to the Olympic Committee why hosting the Olympics would benefit them in their development, prove that they have resources to draw upon, but they would have to be able to explain away the issues they have.
I ended up finding all the official documents that real cities have to go through to win the Olympic bid. In the documents it laid out step by step what cities have to do. I was ecstatic! The packets these cities have to fill out ask about economics, political structure, environmental impact, governmental autonomy, geography, and meteorology. I took the REAL documents, cut them up so they were shorter, and the kids went through the actual process...using the real documents!
They were in five city teams (Sao Paulo, Brazil; Panama City, Panama; Nairobi, Kenya; Alexandria, Egypt; and Cape Town, South Africa) and we had a 5-person International Olypmic Committee. The cities turned in 2 huge packets of information, which the IOC had to thoroughly evaluate and turn in to me a cost/benefit analysis per city. The IOC also played devil's advocate by looking up dirt for each country ("Sao Paulo...can you explain to me how you will be able to handle security for the Olympics when you have 88 deaths a week?).
The cities then had a 5-7 minute presentation to the Olympic committee on Friday and then answered questions from the IOC. At the end, the IOC voted by secret ballot (part of the actual process) and had to revote (also part of the actual process). Sao Paulo won (to the screams of Linda) and they are hosting the Olympics tomorrow.
THESE KIDS WORKED SO HARD. In the end, it's a teacher's dream project--with the rigor, the depth of information, the thinking skills and reasoning skills it develops, along with its authenticity. But, the kids worked so hard that it was less enjoyable than it ought to have been. Overall they didn't really complain. They learned so much and their packets were incredible. 7th period is always my most thorough class so it was probably good for them.
But, I'm glad they get to have fun for the next two days. They deserve it.
The IOC hard at work. I left them alone in the Conference room and when I came back 20 minutes later they were still working away. I'm so proud of them. Although this was a lot of work, the kids worked so hard without prodding.
Reflection: Although it was hard, the kids still took great ownership over this project. Whenever they found info that would hurt them, instead of just not caring, they'd groan and turn to their teammates ("Um...guys...problem. Our water levels are apparently one of the lowest in Africa...we don't even have enough water to sustain our own city...let alone the SUMMER Olympics...in Africa..."). So, 7th period deserves a big huge chunk of points for this. I hope they have fun at their Olympics tomorrow and I'm going to make them medals.
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