Teaching
Delving Deep into the History of Voting
M att Picklo clicks on his laptop and a new slide appears on the screen .
“ What percentage of Americans voted for president in 1872 ?” asks Picklo , a student teacher in Greg Wittig ’ s U . S . history class at Falk Laboratory School . On the screen is a line graph depicting how many Americans voted in presidential elections from 1788 through 2012 .
After a student offers the correct answer — 15 %— Picklo asks , “ And what percentage voted for president in 1912 ?”
The answer is the same as in 1872 : just 15 % of all Americans .
How could this be , Picklo prompts the students , when Black men were given the right to vote in 1870 ? Why isn ’ t there more of an increase ?
The answer is complicated , touching on issues of equity and discrimination and introducing these Falk seventh graders to phenomena such as poll taxes ; literacy tests ; and the focus of today ’ s lesson , gerrymandering .
It ’ s all part of a curriculum developed by Nancy Pfenning , a retired University of Pittsburgh statistics faculty member . She initially developed the lessons as part of an ongoing relationship with KIPP NYC charter schools and computer science education faculty at Brown University but approached Wittig about a collaboration .
“ You have to read the classroom and see how students are interacting with the material . There ’ s room for trying out different things while keeping the same structure .” Matt Picklo
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