<p>Hey! I'm considering starting a new club on campus.
I want to call it the 2008 Club, and have it focus on the presidential election, culminating in a mock election on Nov. 4, 2008.</p>
<p>Though I'm pretty well-respected by my school's administration, I'm not sure how I can present my ideas to the principal and vice principals. Why? I go to a relatively conservative Catholic school, where the principal is actually a Dominican sister.</p>
<p>My school is disgustingly apathetic, except for the efforts of a well-run Amnesty International chapter which does its best, but mainly for international causes, and then mostly only human rights.</p>
<p>I find that there are so many more issues that even more directly impact people my age--and somehow even in the pre-election season there's just nothing going on!</p>
<p>Any advice on how to broach the subject? Also, does anyone have experience exciting potentially political teenagers?</p>
<p>i wouldnt.</p>
<p>i wouldnt want to be talking about abortion, prayer rights, and separation of church and state in a conservative catholic school. plus its only going to last a while. its not really a full fledged club. if you like government, do model un. i did. i love it.</p>
<p>We don't have anything like model U.N. Establishing one would be a) fun and b) a 2-year process, if not longer. I only have 1 year.
c) would require a large amount of interested students.
d) difficult to broach in a school that barely knows domestic issues, let alone international politics.</p>
<p>It's a matter of practicality, but I believe that it is absolutely necessary that our school begin to improve its apathy problem.</p>
<p>I'm thinking of it as a temporary club, and perhaps its legacy would be the potential for some current freshman to actually form a successful model U.N.</p>
<p>But thank you for honesty!!!</p>
<p>Does anyone else have any thoughts?</p>
<p>i dunno how useful this would be, but an awesome project that my U.S. Gov. teacher has us do, is called the citizen action project. In it, we actually have to spend time out of school in governmental institutions and doing other projects. </p>
<p>One day, we go to our city's municipal assembly meeting (with the mayor, etc.). Another day, we watch the presidential debates. Another day, we go to a school board meeting, federal courtroom, state courthouse, or write a letter to a politician about an issue we care about... these are all fun ways of getting people involved that aren't otherwise interested in politics. Field trips would be a great incentive to students to join, if you could get it approved. If you started up a club, these could be some of the things you do together. </p>
<p>I think your idea is great (I'm biased, though, as I am very interested in politics). From what I know, the best way to approach your school administration is with passion. Tell them the truth, but make sure to affirm the fact that this is not a club with any political affiliations/leanings, and it would be an open-ended learning experience for everyone.</p>
<p>Ooh, I like the watching the debates idea!
Sounds the the class is a blast.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>