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Civic Participation & Citizenship Collection

NELRC

Using Current Events as Background
for State Government Lessons
Karen McCabe, Randolph Community Partnership
and Beth Finke, YMCA of Greater Boston

Beth
There are 20 students who regularly attend the citizenship class I teach as part of the Fenway Program at the International Learning Center of the YMCA of Greater Boston. The students are at the intermediate and advanced levels. Many spent their lives in Ukraine before coming to America but several lived in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Many of the students are highly educated and have a solid basic understanding of current events. Some of my students attended Citizenship class at the YMCA last year. Our class has been meeting once a week for three hours since October and is scheduled to continue until the beginning of June.

Identifying student questions
When our semesters began, students in both programs had little knowledge about the structure of our state and local government. In November, the MA state legislature passed a budget cutting funding for Adult Basic Education in half. In this context, both our programs found an opportunity for our classes to learn more about the state government.

Karen
At the beginning of the semester, every student knew the name of the President. Some students knew the name of the Vice-President while others did not. Because many are Chinese and most live in Randolph, the students are very familiar with one of our local Selectman - a Chinese American immigrant who is also a chair of the Randolph Community Partnership. However, until recently this was the extent of most of their knowledge of government at the local or state level.

One Saturday morning in October, a Level One student from Hong Kong brought in an article from a Chinese newspaper. There was a picture of Senate President Thomas Birmingham and a caption in Chinese that identified him as a Massachusetts Senator. The student wanted to know who Thomas Birmingham was because, he said, "the U.S. Senators from MA are Edward Kennedy and John Kerry." I tried to explain to him and the class the difference between U.S. Senators and State Senators.

The explanation still didn't help some Level One students, perhaps because some simply memorize questions and answers without understanding what they are saying. Many students had memorized "How many senators are there in Congress?", "Why?", "Can you name the two senators from your state?" and the answers to each. Although we had briefly discussed state and local government in class last year, most had not learned the answers to such questions as "Who are your local senators and representatives in the state government?" because there were not corresponding questions on "the list" of 100 questions. After my attempt at an explanation, we had a brief discussion about state senators and then we moved on to the lesson for the day, while I made a mental note to spend time on the discussion of state and local government later.

When the state budget crisis happened I decided to take advantage of this timing for some relevant lessons that would help the students understand the questions they had about people in state government that they were reading about in the Chinese (and other) newspapers.

Beth
In late November the YMCA became aware that the new budget that was passed by the Massachusetts State legislature called for a drastic cut in funding for Adult Basic Education. If a supplemental budget was not passed, the Fenway program and many other ABE programs in MA would most likely have to close by February 2002. After gathering as much information as I could, I began to discuss the issue with my citizenship class.
My goal was to present information in a way that would enable the students to be exposed to some aspects of how the state and local governments operate and the appropriate channels they have to go through in order to affect a situation. I wanted to help my students to develop the practical skills of proper phone and letter-writing etiquette as well as develop a general comfort level with corresponding directly with their representatives.

Getting Started
Karen
The first relevant exercise we did was not actually done in the Citizenship class, but by the school as a whole. Most of the students in the Saturday Citizenship class are also enrolled in ESOL classes during the week. Five staff members, including myself, got together with all of the students to explain what was happening with the State Budget, and to explain how this might affect our program. We explained it in English, Spanish, Chinese and Haitian Kreyol - the majority of our students speak these languages, and it seemed an appropriate time to use the native languages.

Next, we asked if students would be willing to write letters to their local Senator, Representatives, as well as to Senate President Birmingham. One asked me again about Senators Kennedy and Kerry. Once they had a basic idea that these local Senators and Representatives were important people in the state government, and that they might help us continue English classes, they agreed that they wanted to write letters to them. Some students also wanted to organize a large group demonstration to the state house. I said we would try to do that, but in the meantime we could also do other things, such as call or write. These students also began to write their letters. However, I noticed there was still some confusion among other students as to why we should write to these local senators and representatives who work in the state government. The next citizenship class would be the opportunity to talk about the structure of, people in, and responsibilities of state government. Because of students' concerns that their English program would be cancelled because of cuts in state funding for ABE, they had many questions and wanted to learn more about this.

Beth
I asked the class if they were aware of a budget crisis. Several had attended the Afternoon Advanced ESL class and were eager to talk about what they knew and how they felt about it. I took notes on the board as they spoke. Through this exercise I was able to see that four of the students were well aware of the basics concerning the budget crisis. After determining what was already known by some of the students, I then wrote short sentences on the board providing a brief background and filling in the basic gaps in information, while discussing the matter with the class.

My class decided to draft a short letter as a group that we could write on postcards addressed to Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, to the Governor, and to local representatives. Those afternoon ESL students who had done this with their class already helped to lead the discussion. The class brainstormed sentences to write and how to phrase them, and I wrote the ideas on the board. We revised until the class was satisfied and I walked around the room to see what the students had copied into their notebooks and to answer further questions. We compared the final draft to a form letter that had been drafted in an afternoon class and some of the students altered their letters. The students then wrote post cards and I collected them after class and mailed them.

Creating Contextualized Lesson Plans
While our two classes started out with similar plans to teach about the state budget crisis and about the structure of state government, we ended with some different lessons. Part of this was because of the different levels in our classes - Beth's YMCA students are generally more advanced than Karen's Randolph students. Therefore, Beth's second lesson included practice making telephone calls to the representatives. On the other hand, Karen's second lesson included an even more simplified discussion of the simple structure of state government, using pictures to compare and contrast it to the federal government. Karen's class also discussed the role of representatives, but students were not at the level where they felt comfortable calling their representatives.

Karen
In Citizenship class the following Saturday, we started with a "picture" of the federal and state government. I began by asking students questions they were familiar with, starting with "How many branches of government are there?" As the students talked, I drew a rough chart on the board, depicting the three branches of federal government. We spoke about the members of each branch, mentioning the President in the Executive branch and focusing on the members of the Legislative branch. Some students remembered the answers "There are 100 senators; two from each state," and "There are 435 Representatives" in Congress. For others this was new information.

When we moved to the other side of the board and a discussion of the set up of state government, this was more unclear to more of the students. A Level Two student knew that there were also three branches in most state governments. We made another chart of these three branches and again mentioned the top executive (Governor) in the Executive branch, and focused on the Legislative branch. When it came time to name our Senators and Representatives in the Legislative branch, we started with Senator Brian Joyce, because he is at least a familiar name to some of the students. Some students said they remembered seeing him across the hall. It helped to start with an actual person, to explain that he was a Massachusetts Senator who worked for the people of Randolph, and then to go on to discuss local Representatives.

One student had visited the State House with a group of teachers to meet the local representatives or their aides to talk about the state budget for ABE. He remembered one of the names of a representative for Randolph, and I wrote down the other two for them. We talked briefly about the fact that representatives and senators may represent more than one town, and that, although students and others can contact any representative they want, sometimes the representatives are designated for a certain part of each town. Each student went onto the Internet and searched for their own address to find their State Representative. We used the web site www.state.ma.us/legis/citytown.htm, which connected students to a site (www.secstate.isaka.net/magov/search_form.php) where they could find their Representatives in Congress, the Governor, the place they will go to vote, etc. Clicking on "Ward, precinct and polling place search" in the first site connects to this second site.

I also passed around pictures and print outs from the web pages of each Senator and Representative. The pictures seemed to make these government members more real to the students. Also, students who have Internet access at home could then go home to look up the information again on their own.

The student who had visited the State House shared his experiences with the aides he had met. Although this student had mostly listened that day at the State House, he had learned about people's rights to go to the State House to speak face to face with people in our government. Students became more clear, specifically, about the state government leaders' role in passing a State Budget and, generally, about their own roles as community members who could influence these leaders' opinions and actions.

Beth
Some of the students from the afternoon class had attended a press conference at the State House earlier that week and were eager to share their experiences. In the course of the ensuing discussion, the class became aware that at the conference, many different adult learners were in the audience with them, and the speakers were leaders from very diverse sections of society who were extremely supportive of Adult Basic Education. After the conference, some of the students met with a representative from their area and expressed their concerns to him. He was not very reassuring to them that the funding would be restored, but he did provide the students with some excellent information, which made the status of the current situation more clear to them. The excitement generated by the visit to the State House brought a new level of enthusiasm into the classroom for the work they had ahead of them.

I then told the class that we could make phone calls to their local representative and senator. Before class, I had generated a list of the representatives of my students and I had called several offices to get a sense of what the students would be experiencing. I handed out a very simple script for leaving a message on a representative's answering machine. I slowly read the whole script aloud. Afterwards I read it line-by-line with the class repeating in unison to practice pronunciation. I told the students I would be available to help them leave a message during the class break. Then I passed out a script that students could use to talk with their representatives during business hours and encouraged students to make calls during the day.

Concluding Reflections
Karen
Through our discussion on the night we wrote letters, and our continued discussion during Citizenship class, students began to not only understand the structure and system of our government, but also to understand the impact of their own voices. They learned that writing letters and making phone calls does make a difference.

On a broader scale, this experience taught students the true meaning of freedom of speech; they were able to write to their government leaders and express their opinions about the state government's decisions even though they did not agree with them. One Chinese student also brought up the importance of voting again; he said, "We have to vote for the right leaders so they continue to help us to have English classes."
In a concrete way, students learned lessons that will help them on the citizenship test. The concept of the three branches of government was reinforced. The differences in answers to questions about state and local government officials, as opposed to U.S. Congress members were clarified. Finally, it was a very appropriate lesson to get the students aware of and involved in current events related to themselves.

Beth
In the course of these classes, the students became very familiar with the names of their State and Local Representatives. Because of their diligence and involvement during class, the articles in the local newspaper and local news radio reports made more sense to my students. Students were able to see democracy in action. They were involved in a political issue that directly affected them and they were able to respond to the issue in a responsible manner.

I wish I had been able give the students a better understanding of the budget crisis before they contacted anyone, so that they could make sense of the responses they received. I would have relied on the peers of my students to encourage and support their fellow students in the process, so that there would be a greater sense of community in the room, and all students would have the opportunity to practice their English skills. I think that one of the main advantages to taking enough time to thoroughly cover an issue is that the lower-level students have a greater chance of absorbing the information while the older students have a chance to re-enforce their knowledge.

Notes
We have long struggled with ways to make government lessons more interesting for students. When the state budget crisis happened, it gave us a clear starting point for some lessons about how our state government works. Talking about the structure of the government in past classes has sometimes proved difficult. Now, students had personal reasons for understanding these lessons - if the state funding for adult basic education was not restored, students would lose their English classes. Because of this, they were able to relate more to the lessons, including learning the names and roles of people in state government. In the future, we hope to make more use of any current issues/events that arise and/or of any issues of student interest as a starting point to citizenship class lessons.

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