As a local election was about to take place, Mila talked about voting with her learners. She told them that if their ideas about the future of the community were to be considered they would have to vote for the candidates of their choice. However, her learners told her that they would not go to the polling center at all. The next day she discussed this issue with them again. They told her that they did not know how to vote. They felt ashamed to go to the polling center because others would see they didn’t know how to vote. Mila worried about this. She thought, what should I do? So what did Mila do?

Mila visited a local election officer and discussed with him the reasons for learners not voting. The officer provided her with some posters that explained the procedures for voting. She started preparing a plan for learning about how to vote.

First, she discussed with her learners the reasons for having elections. Then she invited the officer to use the posters to explain the whole process of voting. Learners asked many questions, such as “Who will count the votes?” and “If my mother is ill, can I cast her vote too?” The learners also did a simulated voting exercise. Mila found that many of her learners were no longer afraid to go to the polling center. As a result, there were more votes recorded in her locality than ever before.

QUESTION PROMPTS:

What can we learn from Mila?
If you were teacher Mila, would you do the same thing for your learners?
Why?