Elections Offer Lessons in the Civic Process

It’s election season, kids, so get ready to vote. OK, it may be true that 18 is the legal age for that, but it’s never too early to develop the habit . . . so to speak.

That’s the idea being promoted this fall by some inventive high school and middle school teachers in the Valley. They are including assignments about the 1996 general election in their social studies, history, economics and media arts classes.

As an exercise at Maclay Middle School in Pacoima, for instance, eighth-grade teacher Michael Taylor has 11- and 12-year-olds interview their parents as part of what he calls “an election lesson.”

Because voting requires a certain degree of citizen effort, he has his students ask their parents what steps they’ve taken to participate in the upcoming election. If their answers are in the negative, Taylor advises kids to ask why that’s the case. If the answers are affirmative, they’re to ask, “How did you get the right to vote?”

Then, Taylor explains, the students comb through the newspaper every day to collect stories on a particular political issue. Following that, Taylor says the kids “boil down their interviews and reports to eighth-grade language and read them in front of our new video camera.”

Taylor has discovered that this method of oral reports helps maintain classroom decorum and enhance the learning experience. “They’ll listen to someone on videotape more than they listen to a live body,” he said.

The use of newspapers in classrooms is fairly widespread--more than 400 teachers in the Valley and Ventura County do so. They can also obtain from The Times a special teaching guide, “The Road to the White House: Countdown to Election Day,” for use in tracking national, state and local election stories.

While print journalism remains a vital part of the teaching process, there’s lots of competition for students’ attention, including the medium Taylor exploits when he uses his school’s video camera.

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Let’s face it. Most kids--and adults--get their election news from television. Even though a recent report from a media watchdog group--Rocky Mountain Media Watch--excoriated local TV stations for carrying little or no coverage of local and state races, TV is almost everyone’s main source of election news.

On Monday in Chatsworth, kids, their families and teachers can get a behind-the-scenes look at TV election coverage. The West Valley TV cable company Cablevision Industries is sponsoring a visit from the C-SPAN School Bus, a 45-foot mobile TV news studio.

The Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network’s two channels broadcast the U.S. congressional sessions live, plus hearings and other proceedings. One of its channels specializes in congressional and state contests. The broadcasts come to viewers unedited--so viewers get frequent chances to see how clever, craven or courageous our lawmakers really are.

About 30 million people each week eavesdrop on politics by watching C-SPAN, but the network has developed something of an underground following among clever kids. They’re the ones who want “more than the facts filtered through a reporter, editor or opinion columnist,” as Chico teenager Natalie Coots put it.

In-person visitors to the demonstrations at the mobile studio in Chatsworth will find several election-season goodies. Examples: a “family activity chart” for tracking the elections via C-SPAN, special guides for first-time voters, and information on an essay contest for high school kids in which the prizes range from a color TV set to a $5,000 scholarship.

Gloria Pollack, education coordinator for Cablevision, stresses the importance of calling in advance to reserve a time for your visit, especially if you’re a teacher or club leader planning to bring a group. The mobile studio seats about a dozen people at a time for the hands-on part of the demonstration.

DETAILS

* NEWSPAPERS: “The Road to the White House” is a program by Times in Education in which students use newspaper stories to follow national, state and local campaigns. Special $30 school package includes a teacher’s guide plus three weeks’ in-school delivery of 10 copies of The Times, Monday-Friday. Call (818) 772-3473.

* C-SPAN: The mobile TV news studio C-SPAN School Bus will demonstrate how the cable network provides 24-hour live public affairs and election coverage. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday at Cablevision Industries, 9260 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Chatsworth. Call (818) 407-3141.