And a little child shall lead them

SPRING VALLEY — Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain couldn’t quite make it to Wednesday’s debate, but they had plenty of supporters to speak on their behalf.

Spring Valley’s John F. Kennedy and Lincoln students crowded into the gym at JFK to hear why they should vote for either of the presidential candidates, and then they were allowed to do just that.

It all began when director of technology Teri Rossman and teacher Mark Abbott were looking at ways to integrate technology into his social studies/geography class.

“I brought up the idea of wikis to him, which is just a Web page all the kids can collaborate on,” Rossman said. “Basically, we needed a really good topic they all could add something to, and we thought, ‘The election.’”

The two talked with former teacher Kathy Cullinan, who had run elections at the school previously. She gave them lots of advice and advised holding the election a week early.

“She suggested we would have more interest in the actual election if the kids bought into it a week before,” Rossman said.

The students in Abbott’s class then created the wiki about the candidates.

“The kids worked beautifully, and that’s how they did all their research,” Rossman said. “It’s still a work in progress, and they’re still adding and taking away from it.”

Then the two decided to have a debate, to make it as real as possible for the students.

Enter English teacher Adam Oldaker, who is also the speech coach, and Shannon Leininger, who teaches about the election process.

Oldaker’s class of seventh-graders were divided in half, with some representing Obama and the others representing McCain. Four students were picked from each team to speak for their candidate, while the rest had responsibility for the question and answer session.

Rossman said the students were taught to use actual quotations.

“We talked to them a lot about, ‘It’s not about your opinion; you have to back it up with facts,’” she said.

Almost all of the students enjoyed the project.

“It was a good learning experience, but it was fun, too,” said Elijah Kleinau, an Obama supporter.

“I liked working with my friends, and it was really fun,” said teammate Trevor Urbanski.

Some of the students liked the give and take of the debate.

“I like the competitive feeling of this,” said Roosvelt Fuentes.

Maria Villalobos, Karla Campos and Nate Pennell liked learning more about the candidates.

“It also gave us individual votes, not just by what our parents said,” Nate added.

Kaylee Golden agreed.

“I thought it was fun because we got to get a say in the election for once,” she said.

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