Mock Congress Vendetta Part 1

Much has happened in the last couple of months. Classes have been going well, quite a bit rushed and crunched, so I don’t feel totally confident about their knowledge. However, I still adore them! They have reached the whiny-complaining stage, but I don’t blame them. They’re tired, my tests are hard, and we have all been diligent and therefore just need a break. Even with all their whinyness and my stress because of their whining (and me beginning to think that sometimes they might be right…) I still really enjoy my classes this year and have enjoyed being a more organized teacher.

Because I am more organized, I have been using my free time to relax, and because free time now means I get to relax, I don’t feel like blogging. However, this cannot be put off any longer and since: my landlords are gone, Thanksgiving Break has begun, I’m waiting for bread baking and cooking dinner, it is high time I told you about one of the best simulations my class has ever had. It was definitely memorable and I don’t think my kids have ever learned so much through our Mock Congress simulation.

My first year teaching, to buy time for me to catch up, and because I needed something fun for the kids since they were having to put up with my horrible first-year lessons, I created a mock congress simulation. I took ideas from other simulations, but over the years it has really developed into something more and more my own.

The kids pick a major issue they would like to see addressed by Congress. They write a bill, and then work to get it passed into law. They serve on committees, they select their leadership (Speaker of the House, President Pro Tem, Majority and Minority Leaders for both houses), they hold caucuses, they write committee reports, they track the bills, they keep them updated on a bill-tracking board, etc. So that I don’t bore you with all of the details, I’ll just say that this year I added an element of competition, to make it more realistic. I had a BillBoard for each class. On it was a seating chart breakdown (labeled by party), a list of the committees (and committee members, by party), and a list of the bills so that the kids can keep track of their own bills, what committee it got sent to, what the action was in the committee, and where it was now. Just by posting that information, the kids now had the ability to see where their bill was, track down the chairman of the committee it was sent to (to argue for passage) and appeal to the members of their party in the other house (i.e: the other period) to ensure their bill’s passage. Let me tell you, there was a whole lot of Conference Committee texting going on in my class despite the fact that cell phones are banned. It’s amazing how they can hide those things.

Anyway, I also added a piece for the leaders. Normally the leaders sortof putter around. But they never really did what real leadership in Congress would do. So this time I told them that they needed to set an agenda. They had to pick 3 bills that had been written by their party members in their own house. I then told them, use your powers to get those bills passed. The kids get Extra Credit if their bill gets signed into law but the Leaders don’t write bills so this was their extra credit opportunity. They had to do whatever they could to get those bills passed and then they write a reflection at the end of the simulation explaining what they did to get them passed (highlighting what they did well and what they should have done, after the fact).
I don’t even know where to begin to tell you how awesome it went. 3rd period (the House of Representatives) and 5th period (the US Senate) did an incredible job. The leaders did an incredible job. They picked their “agenda,” and then the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate (along with assistance by the minority party) assigned their classmates to committees and assigned bills to committees. The leaders strategized in order to get a majority of majority-party members on each committee (which resulted in a throw-away committee in 5th because the Senate was 11, 11 and 1 independent which meant it was hard for them to have a majority on each committee. When that committee of all-Republicans realized that none of the good bills came to them they were quite offended.), they used their influence with the members in the committees, they assigned bills they wanted to committees that had a strong majority of their party, and the minority traded favors with the Majority to ensure that at least one of their bills was brought up on the floor of Congress within the first day. Needless to say, the leaders really used their influence.

However, the genius of what they were really learning was not evident until the second day of congress. It all started with miscommunication between the houses. Each period had their ‘pet bill.’

MORE LATER

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