While voters head to the polls today, students across the country are participating in a mock election in the classroom.
The experiential learning program is a collaboration between Elections Canada and CIVIX, a national charity which aims to strengthen democracy through civic education, which is the study of teaching people their rights and responsibilities to encourage participation in communities and Canadian society.
“Our goal is to develop the skills and habits of informed citizenship among youth,” said Dimitri Pavlounis, the director of research for CIVIX.
More than 7,100 elementary, intermediate and secondary schools signed up for the program. The organization estimates around 800,000 students will cast ballots for their riding’s official candidates.
Across New Brunswick, 221 schools registered to participate for this election’s Student Vote, including Leo Hayes High School in Fredericton where Jon Wilson, the head of the social studies department, is leading the program.
He said that the school has had events over the past few weeks leading up to election day, including representatives from Elections Canada speaking to students and a question and answer panel with local candidates.
On Monday, students will be going to different polling stations set up throughout the building with people helping guide them along the way.
According to Wilson, the school’s goal is to make the election experience “as close as possible” to the real thing to help give students a strong sense for the process of placing a ballot.
CIVIX and Elections Canada provide physical and electronic resources that include election supplies such as ballot boxes and voting screens, slide decks and lesson plans to help make the experience as realistic and possible to students.
They gave schools eight full lesson plans that teach students about how Canada’s democratic system works, as well as more specific information about this year’s federal campaign.
Wilson believes that the intricacy of the program will help these students learn more about the finer details about how the political system works in Canada, leading to them becoming more engaged.
“Democracy is tenuous, it’s not something that’s just for certain people, it’s for everyone to be involved in. A big part of being involved is understanding how it works and what’s going on around you,” he said.
“I think it’s incredibly important.”
He hopes that this program brings election discussions outside of the classroom.
“When the students are able to engage or start the conversation with their parents, they really enjoy that,” he said. “They have incredible things to say and their voices are very important and add to our conversation as a community and a country.”
Pavlounis said that from what he has heard, this is the case.
“We hear that parents have been reaching out to teachers and say ‘I can’t believe how knowledgeable they are about these issues and they’re encouraging me to go out and vote.’”
Part of the Student Vote Canada program is to prepare students about how the election process works for when they’re eligible to vote, educating them about how to have an “informed decision and cast an informed ballot.”
But there are other goals that the organization hopes will come out of these programs.
“The broader goal of CIVIX is really getting students to think about these fundamental questions of how it is that we want to live together as a society so they can contribute to their communities in other ways before they can vote,” said Pavlounis.
Wilson, who has helped organize the student vote program for nearly 20 years, said that Leo Hayes began offering civics courses to their students in the past few years. While no students who have taken these courses have graduated yet, the effects are still being seen.
“[The courses] have proven very beneficial in helping us give students a voice within our building, showing them that there are people in our building and beyond that want to work with youth, understand their concerns and help address them,” said Wilson.
Pavlounis agrees with this, as he hopes that the Student Vote will allow students to have more confidence in expressing themselves.
“It’s worth communicating to young people that they’re entitled to their political opinions just as much as adults are,” he said. “We hope that students feel empowered to communicate how they feel they would vote.”
The results from the parallel mock election will be released to the public after the federal election concludes on Monday.
According to Pavlounis, this is to give those in power the opportunity to see where young people stand.
“That helps us determine, or at least learn more about, what issues are our students really invested in and how we can better support them to learn about those issues.”
Jonas May is a recent graduate of St. Thomas University, with a Major in Journalism and Digital Media. He was last year’s news editor of The Aquinian.
