Was I unreasonable to rig the school council election?

[Coffeeandteach]

I can tell you who will win when I look at the list of candidates. Every year it annoys me that some lovely, often overlooked, somewhere in the middle child will put themselves forward and read a thoughtful speech (written all on their own, at school) but never wins. They lose out to either the most popular or the most able child.

The child who got the most votes today had a speech that consisted of only, "I should win because I am the most popular."

I broke. I rigged it. The lovely, overlooked, somewhere in the middle child was announced the winner and she was delighted (and will do a great job).

YABU- You are the Putin of teachers. Shame on you!

YANBU- Sometimes you have to help the little guy

Your job as a teacher is to educate.

Sounds like 2 children learnt a very important lesson today.

Job done

Thehogfatherstolemycurry
If it was done purely for being a popular child then I would agree with you, but from what the OP said the popular student didn't bother giving a speech beyond 'vote for me because I'm popular'. If that is the case then it seems reasonable to me to discount the votes for any candidate that hasn't actually shared their ideas for being class rep.

I did similar when the teachers were voting for head boy / head girl. Most teachers and TAs from y3 downwards only knew the loudest/ most confident/ most visible children and every year the confident kids whos parents were on the PTA won and often weren't bothered or interested. Year before last there was a lovely, sweet, kind little boy with learning difficulties who was in dire need of a confidence boost and a little girl who was a recent immigrant (less than a year) and had made incredible progress, was amazingly kind and helped so much with all the other kids struggling to learn English (spent breaktimes cheering up and translating for Polish kids in reception who were scared and didn't know what was going on) but had an unsafe home environment and was relying on food banks. I went round and made impassioned speeches about them again and again until almost every member of staff agreed to vote for them. They were both absolutely over the moon and were by far the best head boy and head girl the school ever had. The chair of the PTA was furious though, suspected I'd had something to do with it and complained about me to the board of governors

Thank you for that..wish I had had a teacher like you

Well done all teachers in here who recognise the damage that can be done by always being overlooked because not being popular. Shine what you did will stay with those children.

My ds bas a physical disability and autism. He wanted to be class rep. He spent ages thinking about and discussing all sorts do things including clubs for friendship, alternating popular areas of school and football pitches etc. All things that meant quieter children would get a look in.

Pupil at kids were making stupid and random and very obviously not going to happen expensive suggestions but thing kids would like.

He was told by so many they'd never vote for him.

He gave up before he even got up and read his speech

He's year 11 and just left school. He still talks about the 'popular' kids and how they made him feel.

I think I love you OP.

I've got two children. One the popular, chosen for everything type. Never meant a thing to him to get chosen for x,y and z as he was used to tons of validation. The other one also lovely, but more introverted and nerdy, flies below the radar etc, not desperately popular. Whenever he was given crumbs of attention by being chosen for anything by teachers would visibly blossom.

I got fed up with the usual suspects being chosen for everything, even when it was my own child, at times.

So much hatred for popular children. What's the matter with people?

They are popular because the other children like them, there are good reasons for this. The same reasons that would make them suitable for the post they were elected to.

This come from the Trump school of democracy. Unpleasant.

OP I had this problem and changed the system. Heres what I do:

Application with standard - they are able to take it home (especially if younger for adult support).
Bring them back.
I number them.
Read them anonymously.
Quick recap for each 'number
Blind vote.

The child who was voted last year was shy and quiet but the children loved her ideas and had no idea it was her.

Win win.

*standard questions

So much hatred for popular children.
What's the matter with people?

I'm not seeing much hatred. I'm seeing quite a bit of exasperation when the same children are selected for everything all the time, regardless of how appropriate it is or how much effort they've put in.

A lovely popular child who has worked on their speech, shared a range of carefully considered ideas and has demonstrated they'd be good at the role of class rep shouldn't get discounted just for being popular.
A popular child who doesn't bother to share why they'd be a good class rep and instead says 'vote for me because I'm popular' hasn't shown any attempt to engage and is expecting things handed to them because they have social status in the playground.

What I hate is that some people are all up for seeing the majority overlooked in favour of the popular children and then if anything is done that challenges the top position suddenly it's all 'boo hoo everyone hates on the popular children'.

A popular child who doesn't bother to share why they'd be a good class rep and instead says 'vote for me because I'm popular' hasn't shown any attempt to engage and is expecting things handed to them because they have social status in the playground.

I don't believe that happened. Those are the words of an adult, not a child.Children popular with other children are often unpopular with adults - I can only presume the adults are jealous of the child's popularity.

I taught for many years and the genuinely popular children were popular because of their good attitude, consideration for others, good team players and conscientious. All admirable qualities.

Of course all children should get a chance to shine but to discount a child because he's popular is petty and nasty.

Well done OP 👍🎉

I think my DDs school did similar last year. They let the more popular child win but then announced as Y6 was such an important year they needed 2 on the school council per class and the deputy head picked a second council member. In this case, my DD.

She had entered every year, written her own speech, made posters and campaigned but isn't one of the popular girls.

Shame really that that year they missed out on the council trip to Westminster and City Hall. They only managed the trip to the local council offices to speak to the mayor.

What's the point of having voting. Just have the teacher pick the child. It would be less deceitful.

Been there, done that.

Often when boys voted for just the boy and girls for just the girl.

Or when you have 10 candidates out of 24 children. First past the post is meaningless.

Various forms of PR can get usually be relied upon to get a fairer result.

Similar is true of speechday/end of year awards.

The same children, often deserving, hardly spending time of their seats as they are up for every subject award.

At one school I was at these were coordinated by one member of staff so that a pupils could only win one, possibly 2, awards.

It’s a beyond good for you from me OP!!

Children popular with other children are often unpopular with adults - I can only presume the adults are jealous of the child's popularity.

I taught for many years and the genuinely popular children were popular because of their good attitude, consideration for others, good team players and conscientious. All admirable qualities.

I knew it wouldn't take much for the usual 'adults are jealous of popular children' line to come out.

I'm also a teacher and what I saw were lots of different types of popular including:

• genuinely well liked students who were kind and considerate, got on well with others
• lovely students who have a range of interests and have shown themselves to have leadership qualities
• students who play the class clown and make others laugh, but it's superficial and by around Y9/10 their peers got bored of them
• the 'it' boys and girls who seems to have an undue amount of social status considering they had quite a closed clique
• the unpleasant/rude groups of boys/girls where others would fall into line because although they didn't like them, they didn't want to be the ones to stick their head up and be singled out

I've also seen students who have no interest being on the school council stand because the meetings were in lesson time and it meant they could get of work. I've seen them get elected only to stop attending when it meant actually doing something, which left others missing out for the term until staff could justify saying popular child has lost their place.

If you seriously think that there's an agenda where adults are jealous of popular students and popular students are universally hard working, kind and considerate then it sounds far removed from the experiences of most people I know.

@anon5000 ooh ooh!! I know!

At one school I was at these were coordinated by one member of staff so that a pupils could only win one, possibly 2, awards
My old school did that. Once a student had been nominated by a subject, no other subject could choose them. I liked that system as often I could happily nominate half a dozen from my class alone, let alone the whole year group.

Either you believe in democracy or you do n’t, and if you believe in democracy you have to accept you won’t always get get the result you want.

It’s not fair some kids do not get elected, but it’s not fair some kids fail exams, or fail at sporting competitions. Are you going to rig those as well.

ShinyGreenElephant that is canvassing (and admirable what you did), not vote rigging which the OP did.

I think you were being unreasonable albeit with good intentions and I echo the other peoples comments about democracy. Very sweet of you to do that but you could have always consoled her afterwards and given her a boost that way. Also, bit of an abuse of power and position, and really that's not cool.

How old are the children? Lots of work needs to go into the idea of making responsible choices before people can be trusted with voting, say I! Look where we are with Trump and Johnson. A bit of thought needs to go into who you vote for.

@pallisers

I recognised the other children from seeing them playing the main parts in school plays or being picked to stand up at the front of our weekly 'well done'assembly.

Surely as a teacher you understand that not every kid wants to be in a school play or perform at an assembly? (my two older children hated doing that). So you are judging the kids who are ok with performances as being somehow these evil masterminds who have faked their classmates into voting for them. Honestly I would not want you as a teacher. You take a lazy way out of dealing with a problem of inclusion - and then post on MN so you can get all the "you are a hero" accolades.

Loads of ways you and your school could have dealt with this problem - if it is a problem. but you chose to cheat.

Yep, this^. The weird gushing on here is 🤢. The op doesn't sound awesome to me at all. If (somehow) I found out a teacher did this, even in favour of my own kid, I would think she was probably a bit of a power mad dick who picked on kids they didn't like, (based only on the fact they once saw them at assembly and in school plays, having known them personally for only a couple of days). Teachers are meant to be above picking on children, like a nasty little bully. The fact that many people aren't^ above this is apparent in this thread, but teachers aren't meant to sink as low as the general, nastier side of society; "well done, that little kid had it coming mate, took him / her down a peg or two, well done you absolute hero" 🤢. Pathetic, from your average twat on here, but much, much worse from someone who is supposed to be looking after children in a position of responsibility. Really, shame on you for starting this thread to bask in the very dubious glory of getting one over on a child who is under your authority. If you were a man who did something like this to a woman, you would be told you were coercive, abusive and gas lighting. Apparently, a grown woman doing it to a child she is paid to look after is fine though. Better than fine, amazing and heroic . Even if a mum did something like this to her kids, or a childminder did it to the kids she looked after, I bet the responses would have been negative.

If you'd said you decided to give the lead role in a school play or captain of the hockey team to a kid who doesn't normally get those opportunities, but who is quite capable, I'd have said that was great. But you didn't. You just had the children who you are 'teaching a lesson about democracy', participate in a vote and completely disregarded their choice. This was the wrong time to play your warped version of Robin Hood. You've picked on a kid who you don't even know, because you don't like the look of them. You have also misled your entire class, by having them vote for something over which they actually have no say whatsoever. Only you had any say. So why get them to vote at all? What a poor lesson to teach them about their opinion making a difference. Apparently it only matters if you agree with the person who controls the voting process.