Being a student in the greater Washington, D.C., area has its advantages: frequent field trips to national monuments, access to the leaders of our government, and an interest in government and legislative procedures that would be hard to generate in other areas of the country.
The eighth-grade students at Cooper Middle School are currently participating in a mock congress activity, drawing up their own bills and presenting them in front of their classmates in the form of committee hearings to be voted on. The bills that are passed in committee will be presented to a larger group in January, where they will be voted on once again, some becoming 'laws' while others will die on the floor.
"We've been doing this project since the 1995-96 school year," said Eric McCann, chairman of the eighth-grade social studies department. Prior to that year, each of the four social studies teachers had done a unit on the bill procedure in Congress with their respective students but thought it would be a better lesson if the students got to present to their classmates in different sections of the class instead of the same students they saw daily.
"We all teach during different periods," said Drew Coulter, one of the social studies teachers. "Each class is split up into two committees, and depending on what schedule day it is, the students get to present to a different teacher's class."
For example, a two students from McCann's class will give a presentation on their bill to a committee of students in Coulter's class, while a pair of students from Coulter's class will present to students in McCann's room. After the students' presentation, the students serving as the committee will ask the presenters questions about their bill based, on the information they've been provided.
"THE STUDENTS LEAVE the classroom after the question-and-answer session to allow the other students to debate the bill and maybe come up with amendments to the bill," Coulter said. "They vote on the bill and any amendments. If the bill is killed, it's over. If the bill is passed, it will be on the list to be presented at the full congress meeting in January."
Students are given copies of the bill the night before to study as homework, he said, in order to prepare a minimum of five questions for the next day's presentation.
"All we, as teachers, do is signal when the question-and-answer session is running over," said Matt Alford, another teacher. "The students tend to get very into their debates."
"It can get very heated," said April Bartlett, the fourth social studies teacher. "We go over how the process works, but they're not allowed to say anything negative about the other students."
The students were given very specific guidelines when drafting their bills, which they were able to select for themselves, McCann said.
"They could choose topics for the bill and drew their picking order by a lottery," Coulter said. Only two groups of students could potentially have the same topic in the entire eighth grade the way the program is set up.
"When they first wrote their bills, they had to revise them over and over again to have the language right," Bartlett said. "They spend the first week researching their bill and the rest of the two-month project is presentations."
The topics for the bills do not necessarily relate to anything in the real Congress, although in recent years, topics such as terrorism, security, intelligence and animal testing have been the most popular.
"We actually have one group this year that's proposing a bill that would repeal the Patriot Act," Alford said.
"I feel like this project gets to every single kid, no matter what educational level they're on," McCann said. "They talk about their bills between classes, and on that last day they're all dressed up and presenting their bills and holding committee hearings, and they're focused on it the entire day."
Even the school librarian, Carol Cuccia, gets involved with the research process.
"I set everything up for the students," she said. "I get the books out for them and set up resources."
SHE SAID SHE'S HELPED some students draft their bills in the past, pointing out some online and print sources so their bill is as well-researched as possible.
"I'll set up topics on tables with specific books in a specific order," she said. She also points them in the direction of some resources they might not be familiar with, like the Congressional Digest records.
"I'm impressed with the newer topics they come up with," she said of the students.