Now that Californians have spoken in the Super Tuesday primary, attention turns to the remaining states — and on the November election.
But there are more than just eligible voters paying attention. In classrooms across San Diego County, students are being provided with lessons in U.S. politics, happening in real time.
“By 2032, they’ll be old enough to vote, old enough to participate in our democracy. So, we want them to think about it as active citizens."Michael Williams, History and Social Studies Teacher at Wilson Middle School
Days before the election, we visited Wilson Middle School in City Heights, where history and social studies teacher Michael Williams starts his classes with students watching the national CNN 10 program.
The program is produced for children to better understand current events. At the moment, that includes sixth graders trying to figure out U.S. politics in the adult world, and the people who are the biggest players.
Williams said, "Most of the kids know the big names. They know who Joe Biden is, they know who Donald Trump is, they know who Vladamir Putin is.”
11- and 12-year-olds don’t always know the context of national and world events. So, Williams uses a common teaching strategy called scaffolding.
He directs their learning, starting with concepts they understand. He then provides less support as they master the content. After all, they’re just a couple of presidential elections away from being eligible to vote.
Jason Ramirez, 12, is a student in Williams' class. He explained the presidential primary this way: “There’s going to be an election about Donald Trump and Joe Biden and there’s like this girl saying that Trump is not going to make it. (Nikki Haley) says he's going to lose," he said, adding, “If I was like to pick who’d win, I’d say Donald Trump because a lot of bad stuff has been happening since Joe Biden was president.”
Classmate Misael Martinez, 11, is a Democratic supporter.
“I would vote for Joe Biden because Donald Trump didn’t really support people from Mexico. (President Biden) supports people, like he’s supporting Ukraine," said Misael.
We also visited Otay Ranch High School in Chula Vista, where Vince Martinez teaches advanced placement psychology and a section of AP research.
This month, his research class of juniors and seniors is working on individual semester project investigations requiring academic-level research.
Many of them will be old enough to vote in November’s presidential election.
"We have largely, throughout our human history, trusted the advice of academics. The rigor of their work to establish protocols and information," Martinez said.
“I think the adults in power are doing a really bad job," said Olivia Metz, 17. She is working on an investigation of sexism, and its impact on women’s rights in the world today.
“I’m worried, but I also think if we band together and we try, we can make changes that can help," she said.
Olivia and her classmates are some of Mr. Martinez’s most advanced students, but they are still part of the social media generation that is inundated with information from sources seeking to influence them.
“Their (the sources') primary motive may be profit. Their primary motive may be content. (It might be) clicks, we call it clickbait. And (students) trust these voices and sources to be factual when they’re not," Martinez said.
“I’m investigating misinformation in politics," said Brady Peters, 17. He was scrolling through his Instagram account flooded with political campaign ads about the California primary and beyond when he stumbled on his class research topic.
“It would go from like a small idea to more extremes as I was scrolling through everything. I wanted to know why these extreme conspiracies got so much attention," Brady said.
He has just completed collecting data from 114 students at his school from 9th through 12th grade. They all completed a survey after watching groups in pairs of political ad videos.
AP Research project survey on misinformation in U.S. politics
“One of the videos in each of the pair of two was false. But, I did not tell the participants that one of the videos was false. I wanted to see how truthful they would think it was," Brady said.
Martinez said he is confident his students will learn several valuable lessons in their process.
“I can talk about my limitations, I can talk about the implications, I can defend my choices. That’s where we’re going.”
