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The Indiana Daily Student

IUSA stages mock election for kids

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The IU Student Association Outreach Committee worked with College Mentors for Kids to stage a mock election along with other games for elementary schoolers from 
Bloomington.

The event, which took place Wednesday and Thursday nights with two different groups of students, was designed to teach young children about the way democracy works, especially as the presidential election approaches.

The children played election bingo, which featured pictures of different parts of an election, watched Kid President videos and ultimately chose a president from seven 
candidates.

Jordan Austin, the chief of the Outreach Committee, said the committee and College Mentors for Kids wanted to create an engaging event kids would connect with while teaching them about the complex structure of democracy. The children learned about the federal structure but also about student government at the collegiate level.

“Democracy is important, and we’re happy to share that knowledge with kids,” Austin said.

The committee also worked to get on the children’s level and put ideas to them in ways they would more easily understand.

“Kid President makes it easier for kids to understand things that are happening in the world,” Austin said.

Gianna Mills, a freshman intern for the Outreach Committee, said learning these concepts early would help the children to become more politically involved adults once they realized democracy could work for them.

“If we did a mock election, they would learn to talk about things that they care about in their school, and then would grow up to talk about things they care about in the real world,” Mills said.

The children had student mentors to explain the more complicated items on the bingo cards and in other areas of the event to them. College Mentors for Kids also did an election-themed event last year, and Austin said she thought it would continue annually.

Austin said she thought it was important kids learn the basic tenets of democracy early so they would be able to know what was happening in the world during election season.

“When they see stuff in the media, they’ll be able to recognize terms, and I think at such a young age that’s really important,” 
she said.

Mills said she hoped the event would get kids thinking about issues larger than themselves.

“I really hope that they learned how to cooperate with each other,” she said. “Especially with electing each other for president, I think it’s important to recognize what issues matter, especially in their school.”

Both agreed the event was more politically charged than in other years because of the highly publicized presidential election but both said the children still wanted to learn despite absorbing their parents’ political beliefs.

“Obviously kids hear what their parents say, but the kids love to learn,” Austin said. “They soak it 
all up.”

Some of the children weren’t discreet about expressing their political 
beliefs.

“One of the kids that ran for president said she wanted to be president because she doesn’t want Donald Trump to be president,” she added.

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