Field Trip!!

One of the things I enjoy most about my days at FBS is that I am 'allowed' to be the junior high history teacher! What a treat!! I love, love, love my first graders but getting to spend an hour per day with our junior high students just makes my day even brighter. They are intelligent, inquisitive, and all around ladies and gentlemen. I find that I can address them on a grown up level and it's great!!

We walked to the Burleson County Courthouse today and visited with Ms. Paula Bartnesky, the voting administrator for Burleson County. She talked to the students about voting procedures and let them all experience the voting machine that is used in Burleson County. She was engaging and informative and I feel my students learned something. I know I did!!

Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent--whatever--I encourage you to exercise your right to vote come November. Our country will elect a new President as well as fill other important offices. I find myself getting weary of the nasty ads I see on television and in the print media and wonder just how it is that we have gone so far as to get to this. But then I go back and read my history and find that politics have been divisive since about 1776!! Really. If you don't believe me, go read! Oh, my!! But for the last 200+ years we have been the greatest nation on the face of this earth precisely because we have the right to express our opinions freely and because we have the right to vote our conscience. Our Constitution guarantees it!!

I'll be doing an election unit with my junior high students before the election. I had a college professor named Colonel Russell Fudge who I admired greatly. Col. Fudge used to tell us that he never wanted us to know his political affiliation or how he intended to vote in any given election. That is my goal--to have my students gather information, decide for themselves, and vote in our mock election at school. I do not want my political philosophy to be a factor in their decision making--or yours, for that matter!

Thanks Ms. Bartnesky for a great presentation! Thanks junior high students for being ladies and gentlemen and people I will take on field trips anywhere!! Thanks Susan B. for accompanying us. It's always nice to have a parent along.