In the spirit of exhibitions and the year anniversary of the swearing in of Barak Obama, it is time to look at accountability. Everyone wants to know, how successful was his first year in office? This is very broad, and can be answered many ways – one way is on the Obamater: by Politifact. The creators of the Obameter went through hundreds of campaign speeches and listed the specific promises that he made. They then tracked each of these and gave them a rating of promis kept, broken, in the works, compromise, not yet rated, stalled. Take a look, not only at the content, but the process of how they choose to hold him accountable.
Activities:
- Content – Look at the promises outlined in the Obameter.
- How, overall, has he rated? (according to this site)
- Look over 3 promises kept, 3 Broken, 3 compromises, etc. What can you tell from looking at these specific examples? Does it change your opinion abou this success or failure? Are all promises created equal?
- Personal Connection – Bring it home, more personally. Work with parents and friends to identify 5 – 10 promises that they made in the last year. How would they rate these? Based on the responses, would you rate them a success? What are the challenges in doing this?
- How would you demonstrate this on a graph?
- Process – Engage students in a brainstorming activity – What other ways could you gauge the success of a president (other than keeping promises)? How would you go about collecting that data?
Resources:
- Obamater: Politifact
- Truthometer – fun fun – who’s pants are on fire?
Enciendalo!
Wonder You 