Evidence of Shifts 3

As I worked my way through the discussion board on Elections and Voting I found myself moved by the passion of the South African posts and I wondered if these posts would also impact thoughts of the U.S. students about being politically engaged. One of the CCC students entered the board space at 11:43 a.m., posting her response to the forum question about elections and voting before reading through the board to reply to other students. The NMMU students, because of the time difference had already posted. In the initial post, she said:

Columbia College Chicago Student 1

At the age of 18 we can decide who can be our president but we can’t have a beer. That’s a dumb law. Looking at our elections, it seems like OUR VOTES DON”T COUNT anymore. Especially seeing that in the last election the person with the least votes won the election.

This student’s attitude reflected much of what I had been hearing from my students in class discussions: I won’t vote because it doesn’t matter. Then, recorded 20 minutes after the CCC student’s initial post, I found a glimmer of hope for the deeper, political, changing-the-world impact of the Sharing Cultures Project. After reading through the South African opinions on the discussion board, the same CCC student posted to another student who seemed to be considering NOT voting (a position she had advocated earlier):

Columbia College Chicago Student 1

First of all read back over your first statement--"I think it is a waste of time and that money could have been used for something constructive." You are talking about not voting because it’s a waste of money, but if you don’t vote that money is never going to be used for something constructive. That is why you get out there and vote to tell your damn government what to do. You can’t just sit there and let them tell you where to spend every dollar.

For me, this was hope. It re-energized my conviction that the moments like this on the discussion board, these shifts in thinking as students shared with each other and became aware of lives and worlds outside their own, were the most important things happening in the Sharing Cultures Project framework that we have created.