Representative Stan Blake visited teacher Madeline Trujillo-Hamel's third grad class at Harrison elementary school Tuesday to teach the kids about drafting and amending a bill.
Representative Stan Blake visited Harrison elementary school teacher Cindy Brandjord's kindergarten class Tuesday.
Determining how many people a cookie can feed was something students were asked to do.
A third grade class and a kindergarten class at Harrison elementary school answered this question when representative Stan Blake visited them Tuesday.
The visit was part of the Legislator in the Classroom program.
Blake visited with the students and taught them about the legislative process and the importance of voting.
During Blake's visit, he produced a simulation of a bill being drafted and then amended; the cookies. The cookie exercise showed the process of how an idea becomes a law.
"It was just fun, informal," Blake said. "It's compromise, they learned the process, in a very basic form."
Blake drew pictures of three sizes of cookies; small cookies, medium sized cookies, and large cookies. The same amount of cookie dough went into each batch of cookies, so there were more of the smaller ones and less of the large ones. The kids had to discuss and decide what size of cookies would be best to have.
A student in favor of each size of cookie then stood up in front of the class and told the class why their size of cookie would be the best choice for the class. After the students presented their cookie case, the class took a vote.
During the first round of cookie voting, seven students voted for the small cookie, seven voted for the large cookie and one voted for the medium-sized cookie. The middle cookie was then eliminated.
"The kids learned some people will be in favor, and people will speak against something," he said.
The vote changed during the second round of voting when a third grade girl spoke up and told the class if they choose the smaller one they will be able to feed more people.
"That kind of blew me away," Blake said.
The vote became 11 for the small cookie, and four for the large cookie. The small cookie won.
The exercise showed compromise, Blake said.
"That's how you get a consensus, If we make the smaller cookies, more kids will get the cookies," he said.
"Their thought process is a little less complicated than the legislature, but it's right on the mark. When they discussed the simple form of what kind of cookie and what size, they were thoughtful enough to consider others. It was really neat to see kids who were thoughtful and considerate of others."
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