Students were required to attend an election workshop during an assembly block to discuss the year’s upcoming election on October 17. These workshops were organized by History Department Chair Virginia Dillon and Director of Service Learning and History faculty member Elijah Sivin. History department members and a handful of Upper School student leaders led them. In these workshops, students were guided through a lesson and activity, with the goal of helping high schoolers grasp important political information happening outside the Poly Campus.
“These workshops will allow you to explore a topic of interest in greater depth and provide a space for you to ask questions,” stated Dillon in an email sent out on September 23. During these workshops, students were led through a slideshow with personal activities, lessons, and questions.
Sivin says the importance is to prepare students to become members of the electorate. “Citizenship in general, to have a healthy, functioning society, requires people to understand the system and their ability to engage.” Sivin adds, “you need to understand the American government, you need to understand American history.”
The development of these workshops began in January of last year.”“Mr. Sivin and I, we were sort of thinking ahead…thinking about how the school has experienced elections in the past,” said Dillon. Sivin and Dillon worked together to create a plan to educate high schoolers on these topics. “I started by thinking about what we want election programming to do,” explained Dillon. “How do we want to encourage the community to learn, talk, and discuss respectfully?”
Freshman Aviva Treister “learned how Chat GPT can generate images, recordings, and videos to play with reactions or swing others’ ideas on different representatives in the election.” She added,“although I did learn some, they could have approached it differently. Maybe if they executed it differently, it could have greatly impacted my understanding of the world around me. In the future, they could possibly talk to us as a whole, focussing on the same topic to further develop our understanding.” Treister thinks, moving forward, we could learn more about different aspects of the election through educating the high school as a whole.
Freshman Jillian Maura “looked at the differences men and women have had over election years. These workshops were very positive, significantly helpful, and widened my knowledge. I particularly liked how we could select what our interest would be after filling out a form, which helped me talk about something I was interested in or didn’t know before these workshops.”
In an email sent to the Upper School on September 23, Dillon stated, “Please complete this Google Form letting us know your preferences by the end of the week, and we’ll do our best to get you into the workshops you’re most interested in.” This form allowed students to choose what they were most interested in or would benefit from. Getting the students’ opinions helped them engage more on a topic they were interested in.
Both Dillon and Sivin agree that these workshops had mostly positive outcomes. “What I’m hearing from a lot of the teachers is that they really felt like the students were engaged, and the students were really thoughtful and particularly proud of the student leaders,” said Dillon. But most importantly, Sivin added, “I’m really happy that we have found a way forward to bring it to spaces where people can speak and learn about these subjects.”
In past election years, Poly has taught students election topics in different formats. As stated in a Polygon article from the 2016 election year,“On Monday, October 17th, Poly juniors and seniors gathered in the Richard Perry Theatre for the 2016 Election Symposium, an event that provided an opportunity for the upperclassmen to convene and discuss the intricacies of the American political system.” Like this year, “They answered student questions and shared their thoughts and feelings on this untraditional election, some aspects of which have been unprecedented.” Poly has and will continue to have political-based discussions and activities to help students find a safe space to talk about sensitive ideas and thoughts about politics.
Dillon thinks next year will be different, and whether these specific workshops will continue is not confirmed. “We don’t know what it will look like in four years, in the same way that this election programming came out of thinking about who our students are now. I hope it’s not just a copy and paste,” said Dillon. Next election year and post workshops, she will ask questions such as, “What were the advantages of it? What were the disadvantages now that we had it? What do we know seeing months, weeks, and years later? And would this work for our current student body, or is there something else we need to do?”
The election workshops organized by Dillon and Sivin provided high school students an opportunity to engage and understand the topics of the 2024 election. Most students felt the open space was a comfortable environment for the discussion of politics. As Dillon and Sivin reflect on the success and challenges of this year’s workshops, they also look towards the future and what our world will look like then. “I am really glad that we are finding a way to educate around these issues….I think we do need the community to understand we are trying hard, our goal is education and engagement, and we’re not going to be perfect,” added Sivin.
