Hands on Learning

Aria Flynn, 11th Grader at Logos Academy

Every year, Logos Academy hosts its annual Team Project Week for students grades 6-12. This time around, the theme for the big week was political: a simulation of this year’s presidential election campaigns. We were grouped up – six campaign teams, two newspaper teams, a press team, and a TV and media team – and sent off to work.

One student on each campaign team had a particularly important job: they had to play the role of their assigned candidate. Perhaps the most interesting part of this competition was the candidates chosen. The six teams were assigned the roles of Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Republicans Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and Ben Carson, and last but certainly not least, Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

I was on team Stein, assigned with the task of being Jill Stein. We all headed off to begin our project, being told to organize our groups and be ready for a press conference by the end of the school day – no pressure! Needless to say, our first task was to answer a question that we would hear a lot over the next week, “Who is Jill Stein?” The answer was surprising, and to some of us, surprisingly impressive. Nevertheless, we got to work reading up on our mysterious, unpopular candidate.

Throughout the week, we were scheduled to attend at least one press conference daily, and other times we were required to head down to the auditorium and listen to a guest speak. The guests ranged from former member of state Congress, to reporter, to personal relations manager for the mayor of York. Along with all of this, we had to present our candidates to lower school students, create our own campaign posters and commercials, schedule interviews with the press, and even attend a “televised” debate.