Schoolyard politics

[brendan]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/politics-proves-childs-play-as-pupils-get-to-govern/2007/12/16/1197740096738.html



Interesting concept, but will they be taught the limits and demerits of democracy, majority rule, and the Westminster system?

[cara.mel]

When we did something like that in grade 6, my party won because I was one of the few people to understand preferential voting (despite having gone through it 50 times with chocky bars etc x_x), and my campaign was "vote one yourself, vote two us" and it worked o_O -> we learnt nothing except improving our poster making abilities etc.

And this reminds me of UN week in year 9. We had about 10 people/country, 33 countries all up (school=2 campuses), each person was a minister for at least one thing, some people had leadership roles as well, and all we ever did was spend an hour in meetings to agree to donate x% of GDP to every single area if you were in the rich half, and to accept money if you were in the poor half (they cut a line through the middle of the countrys). Uber practical that was. That was a waste of a week as well.
^ I don't remember any of the jargon at all relating to that =D