Last weekend I spent three days working with high schoolers from all over the state at the YMCA's Youth and Government conference. This mock congress gave students an opportunity to see democracy in action and how the process works. My main work was with students in the media departments and helping them to see how journalism holds our government accountable. While we faced some interesting challenges we were able to produce a daily paper for the conference and even influence a House vote on a controversial bill.
These experiences are the ones that give teachers hope that their work will not be worthless. Opportunities to affect a student's life outside the classroom are everywhere. As educators we need to take these opportunities as a learning experience for our students and ourselves, so that we may inspire students.
I wrote my opinion about this experience in N.C. State's newspaper, Technician, "Rekindling passion for democracy."
Here is the same column on Technician's Huffington Post blog site.
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