H. E. Bourgoin (HEB) students have been exercising their democratic rights for the past few weeks, participating in Student Vote, following the provincial election closely and even writing news articles about the election's outcome.
Though Student Vote, a parallel election held in schools all across Canada prior to a provincial or federal election, currently holds no bearing on official elections results, students this year showed their political prowess, learning about the candidates and getting engaged in a political process.
It is notable that while professional polling companies predicted a Wildrose Party win in April's election, schools across Alberta, including HEB, more accurately represented reality, electing Alison Redford and another Progressive Conservative government, while placing the Wildrose Party in second.
“It's always great to see students, especially at this age, get involved in the democratic process and be able to see first hand what is involved in an election and how they can take part,” said Vonda Worthman, Grade 6 teacher at HEB.
“By them getting engaged and understanding how they can be more involved, the students can then take the conversation to their friends and back home to their parents. We have a right and a responsibility to vote and be involved in our communities and this is definitely a way to foster that.”
Worthman's Grade 6 class was not only afforded the opportunity to vote but they also took on jobs within the election process.
Grade 6 student Brittney Cameron-Forry got to vote for the first time but also took on the responsibility as one of the school's deputy returning officers.
“We have the ballots, then we folded them, initialed them and handed them to the voters,” said Cameron-Forry.
“Being part of Student Vote, I learned about the parties and what a voting station looks like and how an election works.”
She said she's excited about democracy and getting to cast an official ballot when she reaches the age of 18.
Grade 6 student Sarah Mercier also cast her first ever ballot last month as a part of student vote.
“This gives students all a chance to see what voting will be like when we're older. Lot of us have never voted for something before,” said Mercier.
Not only did the Grade 6 class participate in Student Vote, the students in Worthman's class followed the election process and the candidates closely and were tasked with writing a news article about the results.
The Nouvelle published two of the classes' articles in this week's paper. But coming to a final decision on which of the 30 articles would be chosen for the paper was another process altogether.
Worthman said it was her students that suggested using a democratic process to decide which two articles would be submitted to the newspaper.
“They came up with the idea to vote on which articles would be chosen,” she said. “We decided I would chose three and read them aloud, without announcing the name of the writer.”
Worthman read the three articles to her class and one article was chosen unanimously. But it was a tie between the second two.
So Worthman had the students cast a secret ballot between the final two, and in the end one article received just two votes more than the other.
“The students suggested the process, they participated in it and in the end there were no fights or arguments over which articles were chosen,” said Worthman. “The students saw the process as representative and fair.”
Grade 6 student Shelby Anderson's article was not chosen for the paper but she said writing the article and following the election was all worth it.
“I love writing,” she said. “It's much easier to understand things when you observe them and then write about it.”
