To have students fully understand the lessons taught to them and relate to them is the main goal for teachers. Getting them engaged is the big challenge. This year in all the American Government classes the teachers Christopher Rothrock and James Marrone wanted to do an interactive lesson that dealt with how bills are created and passed in Congress.

“We decided to do this because we were trying to create a lesson that tied into the midterm elections,” Rothrock said. “We wanted to create something that was relevant to the students.” Creating a mock representation of how the government works, seniors were asked to create propositions that would make a positive impact on our school. “The classes were essentially Congress,” Rothrock said. He continued to explain how giving the students a voice in what goes in the school makes the lesson more meaningful to them.

Each class had multiple propositions but had to narrow them down to the best one. After voting each class had their own proposal. One of the propositions that made it to the final round was created by senior Natalie O’Neal. “My proposition was to create a study hall period that could be in place of an elective,” she said. This period would allow students to study, make up assignments, or work on life skills with the supervision of a teacher. “A lot of students will get their work done and possibly pass their classes more,” she said. “There would also be teachers there on top of them to make sure they are being productive.”

The other proposition was for graduating students to be able to decorate their caps at commencement. Senior Adelina Mc Nutt created this proposition because she felt it’s important for students to be able to express themselves. “We get to show what motivated us to graduate,” she said, “After all the work we have done to graduate I feel like we should be able to do this for our special day.”

While these propositions are intended to positively affect the school, they also teach an important lesson that will stick with students. These propositions have yet to be proposed to administration but will be soon. Rothrock and Marrone plan on continuing this process with future classes.