District school teachers now have access to a comprehensive lesson plan to teach voting rights.
The instructional supplement, designed by voting rights advocate DC Vote in coordination with teachers and former students, includes pop quizzes, teacher talking points and discussion questions, timelines, news articles, visual aids and suggested homework assignments.
“From what we learned, so many teachers come up with their own lessons and some teachers really want to teach D.C. voting rights but don’t know where to begin,” said Katie Reardon, DC Vote communications associate and a leader in the plan’s development.
“We realized that teachers can integrate this into the curriculum. We just wanted to give them the resources.”
The lesson is part education, part advocacy — an early reminder that District residents have no vote in Congress.
A recommended warm-up exercise entails a mock election in which the ballots of one group of students, those sitting in “Location B,” are torn up after the vote.
When that group complains, the lesson plan states, “explain that they should have sat/been assigned outside of Location B if they wanted to participate in the election.”
“If we reach them at a young age, we feel they can take it home with them and share it with their families,” said Sarah Pokempner, a DC Vote board member. “It’s a really powerful tool.”
But are District teachers even allowed to augment the curriculum?
School Board Member Victor Reinoso, while supportive of DC Vote’s cause, said the group should submit its plan to DCPS for consideration and to confirm it meets certain academic standards, “rather than trying to get it into the school system one teacher at a time.”
“Teachers bring their own personal perspectives, political or otherwise, to what they do,” Reinoso said. “If this is a point of view that a certain teacher would espouse, there’s nothing prohibiting them from bringing their personal perspectives on complicated issues to the students.”
Reardon said DC Vote is working to schedule a meeting with DCPS’ chief of social studies.
