Yesterday at the Fair Vote Ontario conference, Patrick Boyer (who, I believe, is one of fair voting’s best champions) told a story about when he goes into high schools with the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians. He said that in order to teach children and teens about democracy, he asks them to get out a piece of paper and take the following three-question pop quiz.
Question 1: Write down an issue that’s important to you.
Question 2: What do you want to see done about the issue identified in #1?
Question 3: What organization or group do you see doing #2 about #1?
He then instructs the students to take the following action. If #3 exists, get involved with them. If #3 doesn’t exist, create it.
Great advice for us all.
Chris –
Patrick is an old friend of mine and a great guy. He was also, in his day, a first-class parliamentarian. Good person for you to get to know.
Phil
Chris,
On Question 3, it would be hard press to say that most high school students know the vast amounts of organizations that exists out there… let alone questions of duplicate efforts, struggling not-for-profits etc.
But the questions are refreshing and ‘cool’ way of making students think.
I like this. I might steal it for my students. Thanks for sharing!