Kids & Voting: The Ultimate Show-n-Tell

Nov. 1, 2010 Everyone’s buzzing about getting out the vote, but if you’re under 18, what’s a kid to do, besides prodding parents to find their nearest voting spot? Google Election Center's gadget has a handy dandy mobile texting app that does NOT harvest address info, but DOES enable voters to text “where” to 30644 and find the nearest polling place online. Excellent use of … [Read more...]

Media Simulations Where Kids Cast Their Vote: Silly or Sage?

I vote sage. But you probably figured that. Sunday's Kids Pick the President Nickelodeon News special fell off my radar...even with Linda Ellerbee’s encouragement to get in the practice of voting, “because the next four years affects your future as much as any adult.” (ahem, maybe more, kidlets!) Truth is, I missed posting yesterday because kids were … [Read more...]

Do Youth See Politicians As Puppets?

As MyDebates.org gives kids a MySpace forum for Social Studies classrooms to attempt to instill a civic sense of  ‘how it all works’ with “Who won? Who lost?’ Who made the stronger case?” it makes me ponder if we're perhaps asking kids the wrong question entirely. I'm all for teaching kids how to watch a debate, and giving media literacy … [Read more...]

Sensationalist Slop: “Dear Media, Please Do Your Job…”

Further to this week's article on ‘what sells’ in sensationalized media coverage, need we remind kids that the same thing applies to our upcoming election season? As children try to make sense of this adult world of dirty laundry flinging, sound bites and reality show gymnastics, we need to help kids connect the dots with both election media literacy and grounded … [Read more...]