Today is the special town election to fill a vacant select board seat. Lucy picked me up at lunchtime and we went to the polling place to cast our ballots. We were voters 2 and 3. It felt good to perform my civic duty. None of the students I spoke with seemed even aware that there was an election.
I wrote a long email to my class today about learner-centered environments. I had noticed the students seemed to be applying the term to any environment that was not entirely passive: if it was a video, it would not be learning centered. But if the video was broken into pieces and the assignment was to click from one part of the video to the next, it would be "learning centered". (That's actually a bit of an exaggeration). I referenced a very nice table by Robert Yager (which appears in 
this paper as Table 2). It asks a series of questions that represent who is driving the topics in the course: the teacher or the students.
Who identifies the issues and topics: learner or teacher?
Who asks the questions?
Who identifies the written and human resources?
Who locates written resources?
Who contacts needed human resources?
Who plans investigation and activities?
Many of the students were initially very uncomfortable with the idea of being put in the position of deciding what was worth learning. At the first meeting, I asked the students what they wanted to learn. I had one student volunteer one topic. Now, the students are beginning to open up -- to see the possibilities. I've asked them to reflect on how the course could be more learner-centered. I hope they do and share what they're thinking -- I think it could be really informative.
Getting back to Democracy, only over the past couple of years have I realized how unusual it has become in our society to participate in Democracy in anything other than an extremely passive way. We no longer have any models of civic participation. People have become cynical about politics to the point of cliche -- they've never actually participated, but have decided ahead of time that being engaged is not worth their time. I've been really fascinated to discover town politics. Students, who have repeatedly acted like they're powerless, could organize and successfully elect a large contingent of town meeting seats. They could have a seat at the table: the real political table, where the decisions in town get made. But they don't. They just don't.
LarryK helpfully posted a newsflash which indicates that Hubley won the election in every precinct, except for UMass
Funny thing: the ONLY precinct Hubley lost was Precinct 10 (Umass) where 2—count them two—voters turned out one for Bobrowski and one for Keenan. The main thrust of Hubley’s campaign was funding for Umass, something an Amherst Selectboard member has nothing to do with.
Maybe students living elsewhere in town voted at higher rates, but I doubt it.
I do have to disagree with the sentiment that Select Board has nothing to do with funding for UMass. There are two potential meanings: a Select Board member has never had anything to do with it or a Select Board member can never have anything to do with it. It may be that the Select Board has never before lobbied for funding for UMass, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible.