Students Get Out The Vote

My Advanced Writing class has organized a voter registration drive on the campus where I teach. Next Tuesday through Thursday, students in the class will work in the student commons, walking around with clipboards and registration forms, and also staffing a table, complete with literature from the parties and various freebies (cushballs, keychains, and pens with the Miami University Hamilton logo, and of course an array of edible goodies). Members of the class have done an impressive job making signs, getting clearance from Student Services, talking the campus' marketing office into giving us free stuff, contacting the parties to obtain the literature, getting registration forms from the local Board of Elections, and even writing a press release to send to local media (we're hoping for a mention on the local NPR station and maybe even the Hamilton Journal-News). Now their goal is to get everybody on campus registered to vote in the November election. While they're doing the project, they'll also be collecting ethnographic data--conducting interviews, surveying students about which election issues are on their minds, and observing the student body, and writing up field notes, field reports, and eventually a full-blown research report. Judging from the work they've done organizing the registration drive, I have high hopes about the quality of their written reports. Why has the "vocational" function of schooling taken precedence over the "civic" function? I wonder if the imperative to prepare students for jobs actually prevents us from helping students prepare for active participation in the democracy. School is more than skills.