Time and again, arts participation research in the US has indicated that a primary predictor of arts participation is whether or not parents took their children to arts programs. That is, if your parents brought you to theatre, dance or music performances, etc., when you were a child, you are MORE likely to attend arts performances as an adult. My theory is that if parents take their children to vote, we will see a higher likelihood of those children becoming voters as adults. Therefore, I'm suggesting that we begin to bring our children INTO THE VOTING ARENA with us when we cast our ballots this November. Kids may go into the actual voting booth with a parent or not - that's up to the parent. But the mere exposure of going to the voting place, showing ID, watching the volunteers find you as a registered voter, having to wait in line, going up to the booth, and looking at the mechanics of the machine (could be intimidating - but not if one is exposed early on!), and either being in the booth or outside of the booth as the parent votes - all of this would make a deep and memorable impression on kids. PLUS it provides a great opportunity for the parent to talk politics with kids and to explore their own and their children's values - a learning/teaching moment! After having had this experience, kids would feel that VOTING is SPECIAL, sacred, a MUST DO thing. My guess is that later in life, these kids would be MORE LIKELY TO VOTE than if they were never introduced to this process at all and had to motivate themselves. I would like all of us to promote this idea to our representatives, to our school superintendents, to our neighbors, our friends - spread the word: BRING YOUR KIDS TO VOTE THIS NOVEMBER!
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Since voting facilities are open from seven-to-seven and I work from eight to say near-six most days, the only option for me is to vote either on the way to work or on the way home.
My kids can't spend a nine-hour day at work with me, so I guess they'll just miss it.
How do you really envision this happening Corneliaev? Take the day off?
But on the subject of talking to my kids about voting and politics, of course I do. If you just let the schools endoctrinate them without using logic, who knows how they'll turn out?
To hrench: I'm not suggesting that children go to work with you on voting day. My voting place is close to home, so I swing by my house on the way home, pick up my kids, we go vote, and then go back home. Or, I've taken them with me in the car in the morning, stopped by the voting place to vote, and then I drive my kids to school and daycare on the way in to work - the polling place is on the way.
I think a few experiments to test this idea would be worthwhile and low risk. (That ought to be the response to many ideas proposed here: Neither "Let's do it" or "Bah, humbug," but "Let's give it a spin."
As an educator, I couldn't agree more. Children do model what their parents do - both good and bad. I find that, when kids do something with their parents, it's "cool". I tell my students, "I'll never tell you how to vote but I'll always tell you to vote."