Our 9/10 mathematics class is divided into 2 years and this is the year where we took the Simplifying and Solving unit and broke it into 3 shorter units.
We move on to another new unit: The Elections Unit. Curriculum Partner and I decide that it would be super cool to take advantange of the US elections and talk about some of the mathematics behind them.
This means we are a) writing a 2-week unit from scratch (after heavily revising another 2-week unit) and b) trying to build schema around elections in the United States.
We have the kiddos write about the leaders in their country. How they get their power. If they support the people. If people like them. Then, they have to ask other kiddos about their country’s leaders and decide who they think the fairest leader is.
Some students from Guatemala claim that all people, including children, can vote in Guatemala (others disagree; as I recall, Ecuador passed a similar law a few years ago, though it is largely symbolic). Students from Yemen say that everyone can vote as well (though Wikipedia says there have been no elections in Yemen for a long time). All the students from [redacted] country in one class claim their leader is an idiot. “He doesn’t even know the national anthem,” spits one.
Big Honkin' WordPress 