Community High School

The Future in Their Hands

“If it seems confusing it’s only because it is.” Chuck Wilbur, who teaches Picking The President (PTP), says this frequently on Tuesday nights to a classroom of confused and tired students still trying to process the class’s last discussion.

This probably seems like the last place one would find students already worn out from sports, games, and extracurricular activities: back at school learning about politics. Why would they be here, since they can’t vote?

“It really means a lot to me to get what you want out of your country,” said Charlotte Bruell, a junior at Community.  Many students in the class echo her sentiment.

“The class gives you an insight into your own morals and values,” said senior, Ari Goldstein. He hopes to get “the skills of really being able to access yourself and compare that to somebody else,” out of the class. That is exactly what Wilbur intends to teach: “My job is to give you the tools to help shape your opinions and perspective to make intellectual decisions.”

At the end of class on Tuesday, September 18, Wilbur pulled up a slide showing the issues about which American voters care most.  He explained the values that went along with them.  (For example: the abortion conflict is centered around religion). In PTP, the class voted and its top three issues were Iraq, immigration and the economy. The top three issues that matter most to voters in general are the war in Iraq, terrorism/national security, and the economy.

Even though these are the top three issues for American voters, most people don’t know very much about them. This is exactly what Wilbur wants to change by teaching this class. “Our goal in this class is to put you in the top 1% in terms of understanding how the political system works and making intelligent decisions about candidates on issues.” This is the second time Wilbur has taken 30 students and made them political whizzes. The first was four years ago when his youngest child, Jeff, was a sophomore at Community. After realizing that there would be only one election while Jeff was in high school, Wilbur figured that his son and other high school students should be aware of what was going on and that he could be the one to explain it to them. “Community is supposed to use the community,” he said.

“Taking PTP was definitely one of the best things I did in high school,” said Marie Alexander, who is a junior at Tufts and is helping out in the class. Similarly, while in high school, Wilbur became interested in politics because of Eugene McCarthy, the only anti- Vietnam candidate in the 1965 elections. This was the first time he felt that a politician could relate to the younger generation. Wilbur went to Indiana in order to campaign for McCarthy in the primaries. This “life-altering experience” showed him that he could lead and organize people, which evidently is part of his job as one of Governor Granholm’s administrators.

One of the requirements of PTP is that the students pick a presidential candidate and go campaign for him or her. This year the class is going to the Iowa caucuses. During the previous three classes, Wilbur explained the groundwork of the political system, talking about caucuses, primaries, and the Electoral College. Over the summer, students were given various assignments like watching debates or writing short opinions about the feuds between candidates.

The hard part is picking the candidate they want to support, someone who shares the majority of their views. “You don’t want to let perfect become the enemy of good,” Wilbur said as the class discussed potential candidates. The class is going to make scorecards, giving each issue a percentage (i.e. Iraq 50%, Abortion 25%) so as to rate the candidate most compatible to their own views.

At the end of class, the 30 students stagger to their feet, leaving the library exhausted. They have a lot to think about in preparation for their trip to Iowa, where they will make their voices heard.