Students' Brush With Fame Comes with Lessons

Stoddert Elementary students say they learned a lot from their debate in front of . Some learned to calm their nerves, some learned how fickle voters can be and some learned to keep trying.

Mr. Dingledine's fifth graders debated whether President Barack Obama would be reelected in 2012 and held a vote after opposing sides presented their views on the matter. Their exercise was featured in the article "America’s Next President, As Predicted By Fifth Graders."

The students spent two weeks preparing. The opposing sides each had a "prep guy" to play devil's advocate and help encourage their teammates.

Yahri, 9, took his work seriously as he prepped the pro-Obama team, "we had to challenge them to get it right."

Students did research online, got advice from their parents and worked together to prepare for the debate.

Daniela, 10, said she had been in debates before, but that her team had never won. Just the same, she said, "I tried hard and I just wanted to prove that Obama was a good president and that he’s doing a good job and that he’s trying and that he should be reelected."

Several of the students said they were nervous having a reporter in the room.

"I was trying to pretend she wasn’t there, to kind of calm my nerves a little" said Hudson, 10.

Casey, 10, said his nerves got the best of him at one point when he forgot part of his argument. "I paused for 20 seconds" he said before remembering.

Going into the debate 10 of the 16 voting students said they did not think Obama would win reelection. In the end, the votes switched and more students said they thought he would be reelected.

Jacob, 11, who had gone into the debate with the advantage, said he learned something from that switch: "an outcome for something can change really quickly, like with the debate. We had the up side and then we had the downside."

"Also," he added, "there's always two sides to a story."

Though, not if you ask Akiri, 10. He made sure to stick to his debate talking points, taking a jab at the former president.

"All the mess we’re getting into today is George Bush’s fault," he asserted.

Did the debate change any of their minds about what they wanted to be when they grew up?

Archie, 10, decided maybe being a lawyer would be fun, though football and basketball are still in the running.

All of the students involved said they appreciated their teacher for giving them lessons about the real world. And they all really liked Stoddert.

"I don’t think I would have gotten into TIME Magazine if I hadn’t gone to Stoddert," said Jacob.

To read more about local kids putting neighborhood schools on the map, read the full TIME article online.