Please Vote For Me Summary
Cassidy Williams
9 December 2016
PLS101: American Democracy
Haglund
Please Vote for Me: Summary and Response
In the movie, Please Vote for Me that we watched in class, an experiment in democracy took place in an elementary school in China. For the first time ever, the way of electing a class monitor had changed. The teacher usually just appoints who she feels would be the best candidate, but this time the children were asked to do an election. The class monitor is a powerful position in this elementary school. He/she gets to help control their peers, keep them on task, and punish the ones who act out. The teacher chose three candidates: Luo Lei, the current class monitor, Cheng Cheng, and Xu Xiaofei, then, each candidate chose two assistants …show more content…
First was the talent show. The candidates danced, sang, and played instruments to show off their unique talents and impress the class. The second was a debate. Basically, the entire debate was them screaming at each other about their unworthiness and mudslinging the other candidates by pointing out their flaws and shortcomings. This reminded me a lot of the debates I’d seen in our own election. Lastly, they had to make a speech. This is where they directly said “vote for me because I am better.” The part that stood out the most to me about the events, was how involved the parents got. My parents were always like, “Oh you’re running for class president? Cool.” But, every night, the Chinese parents pushed the children to memorize speeches, rehearse their talents better, and in some cases, actually encouraged their children to deface and embarrass the other candidates, cheat, and lie. Although the parents were supportive, the children visibly felt pressured and didn’t like being pushed so hard and often cried and lashed out at their parents. At school, the candidates made promises, planned negative, harsh tactics, and talked bad about the other candidates. I was astounded by some of the things these young kids were saying about each other and the things that so closely related to our own campaigning and electioneering, and these kids had never even experienced democracy …show more content…
If Chinese children can replicate our exact outcome of democracy in a few short weeks without any instruction, then the flaws must be in the system, not the way we are running it. After all, greed is human nature. Maybe we should develop a system that masks those flaws so that we may come together to change America for the better and work together to solve our world’s and country’s problems instead of fighting amongst ourselves, pushing the blame on someone else and pointing out each other’s’
9 December 2016
PLS101: American Democracy
Haglund
Please Vote for Me: Summary and Response
In the movie, Please Vote for Me that we watched in class, an experiment in democracy took place in an elementary school in China. For the first time ever, the way of electing a class monitor had changed. The teacher usually just appoints who she feels would be the best candidate, but this time the children were asked to do an election. The class monitor is a powerful position in this elementary school. He/she gets to help control their peers, keep them on task, and punish the ones who act out. The teacher chose three candidates: Luo Lei, the current class monitor, Cheng Cheng, and Xu Xiaofei, then, each candidate chose two assistants …show more content…
First was the talent show. The candidates danced, sang, and played instruments to show off their unique talents and impress the class. The second was a debate. Basically, the entire debate was them screaming at each other about their unworthiness and mudslinging the other candidates by pointing out their flaws and shortcomings. This reminded me a lot of the debates I’d seen in our own election. Lastly, they had to make a speech. This is where they directly said “vote for me because I am better.” The part that stood out the most to me about the events, was how involved the parents got. My parents were always like, “Oh you’re running for class president? Cool.” But, every night, the Chinese parents pushed the children to memorize speeches, rehearse their talents better, and in some cases, actually encouraged their children to deface and embarrass the other candidates, cheat, and lie. Although the parents were supportive, the children visibly felt pressured and didn’t like being pushed so hard and often cried and lashed out at their parents. At school, the candidates made promises, planned negative, harsh tactics, and talked bad about the other candidates. I was astounded by some of the things these young kids were saying about each other and the things that so closely related to our own campaigning and electioneering, and these kids had never even experienced democracy …show more content…
If Chinese children can replicate our exact outcome of democracy in a few short weeks without any instruction, then the flaws must be in the system, not the way we are running it. After all, greed is human nature. Maybe we should develop a system that masks those flaws so that we may come together to change America for the better and work together to solve our world’s and country’s problems instead of fighting amongst ourselves, pushing the blame on someone else and pointing out each other’s’