TEACHING SPIN AND CLICHES IN SCHOOL

Educating students about the election means more than simply discussing the issues, writes Ariel Ramchandani. Savvy teachers know to take students into the spin-zone ...

"Lockbox". Al Gore's secret social-security hiding place is the word I remember best from the 2000 American presidential election. I was not a news junkie, nor even a registered voter. I learned about lockboxes and social security in Ms Eichler's social studies class. She covered that election rigorously, making policy lists on whiteboard in red and blue markers, mapping out the electoral votes on the chalkboard. Our most-hated assignment now seems archaic: we had to bring in as many news clippings about an issue as we could get our hands on. "No printouts! I want to see you get your hands dirty", she would bellow, leading to sleepless nights of clipping, compiling and hasty highlighting.

The class stands as one of two big memories of that autumn. The other, more profound one was the realisation, while sprawled on the floor in front of the TV, that something political could also feel personal, and also crushingly disappointing.

Eight years later I am a registered voter, with teacher-friends instead of teacher-teachers and way more media at my disposal (we all have dirty hands now). The term "lockbox" (along with the unavoidable image of a cartoon treasure chest) remains seared in my brain. Words--tag-lines, phrases, clichés--and the power to interpret them are part of the grit and gristle of an election education. We can get caught up in their traps (lipstick on a pit-bull, and then also a pig), or overuse them until they mean nothing (maverick). But the repetition and didacticism of campaign language can be an incredibly valuable teaching tool.

I noticed this in the classroom of my friend Kaitlin, a seventh-grade public school teacher in Brooklyn. In introducing her students to the art of politics and politicking, she has replaced fist-fulls of newsprint with more advanced calibrations of political language, such as R. Luke DuBois's "Hindsight is Always 20/20". DuBois has created an algorithm to sort State of the Union addresses according to word frequency. He then arranged each speech to mimic a traditional vision-test chart, "testing the metaphorical eyesight of the nation." The results have easy, chilling lessons: George Washington's most frequent word was "gentlemen"; George Bush's was "terror".

The New York Times published a similar graphic (which Kaitlin also used) that calculated the number of times words were spoken at this year's party conventions. According to the chart, the Democrats said "change" 89 times, "McCain" 78 times, and "hockey mom" zero times. On the other side, the Republicans made 43 references to "God", 42 to "taxes".

There are countless examples of rhetorical materials she and other teachers are using to teach this election, such as this engaging YouTube clip of repetition during the debates. In Kaitlin's class, students had to write an essay about the issues of this election. After reading their essays to their peers, they were asked to count how many times they mentioned certain words, such as "fair" or "equality", and to consider their meaning. They are learning how to think analytically about language and expression--both precise and evasive--as well as the issues at hand.

The effect is to make some of the jargon of government seem less intimidating. "We're talking about taxes. And my students have heard the word 'taxes' over and over before without really knowing what it meant", Kaitlin explained. "We broke it down like a math problem. I wrote out on the board what each candidate was going to do in each tax bracket. And they were riveted."

Classes about the election have been the easiest for Kaitlin to teach, evoking the most student participation and attention. She told me a story of a student who approached her at the end of class, looking thoughtful and tugging on her arm, to ask "so what's McCain's deal?"

Keeping a classroom an open environment during heated political discussion can be difficult. It is particularly challenging for teachers to keep their own opinions to themselves. (In Kansas a teacher was suspended for producing a militantly pro-Obama video.) Teachers I spoke to reported high levels of Obama support in their classroom--admittedly, Republicans are pretty thin on the ground in New York City public schools. And students insist the fervour is their own. "At a certain point everyone in the class has decided on their own anyway", said Nora Foote, a high school junior in a public school in Vermont. Her election class has 17 Democrats and one Republican. Clearly "change" beats out "taxes" for the spectatorial under-18 set.

Image Source: Jose Kevo/flickr

(Ariel Ramchandani is a contributing editor to More Intelligent Life.)