Today we started off by discussing the following quotes:
"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment." -Richard Hutchins
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." -Winston Churchill
We also discussed the idea of Rational Ignorance.
This led into our assignment concerning candidate research. Each student was assigned to research the Utah candidates running for governor, senate, and the house of representatives from the applicable district. We talked about a few of them and their stances on health care, immigration, taxes, etc.
The students are supposed to talk with their parents/legal guardians regarding whether they're going to vote, who for, and why.
In an effort to further customize the curriculum to each individual student we are going to alter our approach, at least as far as the English credit for this class is concerned. Each student will make a short list of books they would personally like to read, preferably a classic or otherwise "significant". Together with the mentor the student will pick a book from that list and set up a contract specifying a finish deadline and a specific type of paper to be written, among other things. Large portions of the last period of the day will be spent reading from this book. As needed, students will individually go to the Writing Center for personalized help in writing their paper.
