Kids are one of the hardest populaces to get motivated. Even with this given the right circumstances they can be the easiest to rally towards a new cause, particularly when lead by a teacher or coach. In middle school we had a teacher who decided to run for county council. Being the intelligent teacher he was he brought his students in on his plans, producing an overwhelming response.
Mr. Pemberton did not have a huge backing going into the race. In fact he had little support from his party due to the fact that they were attempting to win the mayor’s seat. What he did have was perseverance and the backing of over four hundred students, who were more than willing to sacrifice their Saturdays to help him win the election.
So began my first foray into what I would now consider public discourse. We were in charge of a lot of things over the course of Mr. Pemberton’s campaign. Most important I believe was our pledge to wear his campaign shirts on a regular basis. I had two shirts, one blue and one red, I made sure to wear them both at least once a week. It was amazing to see the Election Day with the entire school sporting red matching shirts. Even the teachers had taken time off their Oxford dress code to match the students. This was a major uplifting for Mr. Pemberton he said no matter what, win or lose, he was proud to see that all of his students cared enough to help him.
Another crucial role we played in his campaign was to pass out flyers and buttons to get Mr. Pemberton’s name out to the public. This was hard because this involved activity outside of school that wasn’t a school function. Many students could not participate because either their parents supported the opposing party or simply they did not want their children becoming political at such a young age. Even with the setbacks we began organizing peers and setting up unofficial campaign stops.
It was funny how even a mild election such as a city councilman people’s opinions can become heated. While passing out the flyers and making our presence be known at grocery stores we ran into some pretty violent people. They countered us with facts and percentages; some even went as far as to say that all democrats were the spawn of the antichrist. We countered with made up facts and more information that we had heard from the news. Basically the conversations ended in much the same way either we ran into supporters or we got yelled at.
Truth is the parents were right. We had no clue what we had gotten ourselves into. We weren’t political in fact we were so young, we still only spouted what are parents had bothered to tell us. At that age I couldn’t anymore tell you the difference between a Democrat and a Republican as I could tell you the difference between Iraq and Iran. It’s almost comical to know now that we were fighting so hard for a cause that we had no clue what it meant.
We had no idea what we were fighting for except that the man we were fighting for meant a lot to us. That’s all a great idea needs. It doesn’t need a huge backing for an idea, but a huge backing for a figure head works just the same. Mr. Pemberton was a man that treated his students as equals, so in return we were willing to do whatever it took to get him elected. The idea that an entire school can fall behind one teacher seems small, but the idea that an entire school was willing to do whatever it took showed the true caliber of the man running for city council.
To this day Councilman Pemberton still owes his success of wining his election to his students. Though we knew nothing about the issues we were helping to spread, our perseverance showed the people casting the votes that this man was worth every kid that campaigned for him. The election showed me how a small group of individuals with a common cause can make big changes with a little bit of motivation.
