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

I wonder if this is why my son was class rep

He certainly wasn’t bothered by being the class rep but is popular

His friend is far more confident and a child that knows how to pitch himself

Anyway my son loved his time as class rep and certainly it helped with his confidence

It think it’s great what you did op

YABU - don't hate the player, hate the game. The 'popular' child you obviously have taken a dislike to may well have their own private battles- who knows? The point is, if you think the system stinks, change it. Don't take the chance to upset a child who thought they were popular and may now be fretting their friends don't really like them. You're meant to be the grown up.

@LolaSmiles

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.

So don't have the elections any more. You don't keep having them and then interfere with the results. Absolutely insane that people do this without hesitation. It doesn't occur to teachers that they owe their class any honesty at all, as long as the teacher gets the kid they want voted in and not the one they have decided is a wrong 'un . And the op only met this terrible kid who must not be on the council yesterday ffs.

Why is it that teachers, TEACHERS, not a child vote, continually pick the same kids for the lead in the school play for example, but when the kids vote and choose the same person again and again, they start sneaking around, throwing voting slips in the bin on the sly? Why is that? It seems quite common based on this thread. Why should the kids opinions be totally disregarded when they vote, but when another teacher keeps picking Sally-Ann for the lead in the play each and every year, nobody questions it? Presumably, the kids have less say in the day to day running of school. This is one of their few opportunities to have a bit of influence. Presumably, the whole idea of having a student election has a purpose? I don't imagine it is to teach them that if they don't agree with teacher, they will have their opinion thrown in the bin.

I did this last year for my class. Pp's have said it would be different if you were giving out opportunities. School council is! They get to meet a range of people, get taught their opinion is important and are given jobs to do e.g. giving presentations to other year groups.

It bugs me how every year teachers are asked to choose an able child rather than the winner anyway so if it is close I usually pick the quiet child with little self confidence who doesn't have many chances to shine rather than the child who receives applause for every thing they do. Because it does make a difference to the child who is chosen.

@DaenarysStormborn

I did this last year for my class. Pp's have said it would be different if you were giving out opportunities. School council is! They get to meet a range of people, get taught their opinion is important and are given jobs to do e.g. giving presentations to other year groups.

It bugs me how every year teachers are asked to choose an able child rather than the winner anyway so if it is close I usually pick the quiet child with little self confidence who doesn't have many chances to shine rather than the child who receives applause for every thing they do. Because it does make a difference to the child who is chosen.

So just appoint them then. Why bother with the vote if you're just going to ignore the result and do what you like anyway?

I suspect this happens a lot but very few teachers would ‘fess up to it.

Funnily enough my son mentioned something like this just the other day, about something which happened years ago. HE was the one who didn’t get elected. A sensible, hard-working, quiet lad was elected instead, which totally mystified the class as most said they’d voted for my son. He was convinced it was rigged, but I said NO that wouldn’t happen! Apparently it would! Actually, my son admitted that the boy who won it was best choice and would have taken it more seriously than he would, so no harm done really!

When ds2 was in final Yr of primary there was an election for team captain..... he has asd and not the most social boy.

He worked so hard on his speech and apparently delivered it so well, The kids accross all years actually voted for him...his teacher teared up when she told he he had won :)

Well done OP. As a parent of a middle of the class lovely child who never got picked, I applaud you.

On her last day of primary school my DD turned to me and said 'I was at that school for 7 years and not once in all that time was I ever picked for anything'.

What a sad thing to take away from her primary school years.

The whole point of the school council is that students vote for who they want to represent them
It should have been explained to them that's its not a popularity contest and they should give reasons where they would like to help the school improve
I have known children shine in this role - the child that the teachers rolled their eyes at
It's not for you to rig the votes
Day two into a new term is too early to do this anyway

Have you thought of making it a teacher chosen role rather than wasting time and pretending that it's an election? I'm surprised that your class has never rumbled you -older primary would try and work out who voted for the winner and work out that something didn't add up.

oakleafy ^Do schools not realise the positive power of those little coloured paper 'Certificates' ?
''{Name} deserves a special mention today for ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~''
My school had 'Prize Day' and I never received a prize, much to my parent's chagrin.
They went to the 'Good' children...The chatterboxes didn't get a look in.^

Oakleafy you are so right. My son is graduating this year. His three prized possessions are:

1. a printed certificate from Second Grade that said: "Most enthusiastic student in the class!" (He had ADHD and never could sit down but his teacher was incredibly tolerant.)

1. a certificate for participation in the spelling bee. (He volunteered on his own and never told me until the day before. I went to support him and sat there praying "don't let him be the first one down." He made it through eight rounds and in his eyes he was a winner.
2. a hand-written thank you note from the football coach for his work loading and unloading equipment for practice sessions.

He has said several times he won't miss school because he feels invisible there.

You can take steps to strip out the influence of popularity. In our school, the children write the speeches and then give them to the teacher. The teacher randomises the order and reads all of them out. The children vote for the best speech/message. It's only then that who the elected councillors are is announced.

You didn't rig it. Popular kid did not qualify to be included in vote process because they did not produce a speech (a single line statement is not a speech).

Humans are odd.
Often the "popular" people are not nice/kind but are manipulative

Georgiagirl52

My experience of school was the opposite! I was able and the prizes were constantly given to those who were not, for "effort". In the end my mother raised it with the school when the weekly "effort prize" started circulating round my classmates a second time (including the naughtiest kids) and I still hadn't got it. I was able AND trying hard but they felt I needed no further incentive. I hated it.

The 'popular' child you obviously have taken a dislike to

No, the 'popular' child who described themself that way, who made a piss poor effort at a speech and displayed their arrogance

• 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

Agree.

My ds found many kids followed their peers because it was best for a quiet life.

One day a really popular kid (basically the gobshite everyone was scared to stand up to because he could shrink you to an inch with one sentence) decided to jump my ds from behind and kick the shit out of him. Ds defended himself. As an athlete this kid did not come off well.

He wanted ds in trouble. School told him he reaped what he's been sewing for years, ds absolutely had a right to defend himself, and will think twice next time he thinks he's above every student.

(Basically ds pushed him off him and he fell and broke his arm. 6 weeks of plaster was a reminder he'd come of worse from the kid who barely spoke and he'd used for his entertainment for years)

Ds suddenly had peers talking and engaging with him. And my ds being my ds told them straight he had no interest in being friends with people who didn't defend him when he needed it and just wanted to follow him now like they'd followed "Jonny" as some kind of shield

Other very popular children were because they were generally lovely and did so much. But they often weren't picked for everything because their popularity was friendship wise and no one saying anything bad about them but they didn't push themselves above others.

In fact I'd say in some ways they lost out - these are the kids who were asked to attend every parents eve, drama event, open evening etc - they got extra time in school for being popular with teachers

Popular doesn't have to be a negative personality trait. But when it's used to think you need to make no effort it needs reining in.

@LolaSmiles

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.

Not sure why you responded as you did in the first part of your post. I outlined exactly what I meant by popular. Perhaps you didn't read it properly. It matched almost exactly your first category. The rest are irrelevant as a response to what I wrote.

I know for a fact that some parents are jealous of some popular children. I've seen them banging their sulky fists on teachers' desks. You are fooling yourself if you think otherwise. I've heard the Mums' mafia at the gate who also have their favourites. They love to moan when a deserving child gets something their child doesn't because their children are sooooooooooo much more deserving.

The other children don't have a problem with the genuinely popular kids. It's their parents who do. Quite sad, really.

If children are allowed to vote then the vote should stand. It's dishonest to rig it. Choose a different method of selection rather than be deceitful. Kids know.

It’s rigged, but the trouble with that kind of vote is that it is about populism and demogoguery, not democracy. Democracy requires thought and information. Has your school perhaps not been as good as teaching the substance as it has about the forms of due process?

BigBlondeBimbo
I would expect teachers to select students for sports teams and shows based on talent.
The first year I auditioned for band I didn't get in. The following year I did because I was a better musician. Solos went to the best musicians and that is fair.

Equally if someone running for school council hasn't shown they have the skills or ideas then it's reasonable for them not to be a serious candidate.

I wouldn't want solos in choir going to the most likeable student, and I wouldn't want school council positions going to students arrogant enough to say "vote for me I'm popular".

Thankfully my school also does anonymous selection based on little manifestos and tries to build things into school life so children can shine based on their talents, not who has social capital in the playground.

If children are allowed to vote then the vote should stand. It's dishonest to rig it. Choose a different method of selection rather than be deceitful. Kids know.

Exactly. There are so many opportunities for decent teachers to make a point about making sure all kids, even the ones they don't warm to especially, have their opportunities to shine. Why not take those opportunities, when appointing children into roles, where the teachers quite clearly have the final and only say? It is very cowardly and not heroic in the slightest to let your class go through the motions of voting and then bin their votes if you don't like them. If you want to make a stand and stick up for the little guy, do it. This isn't what you did.

What you did was took a dislike a kid you barely know and made sure they didn't get a role in the council, even though their peers voted them in. Which undermines every child who voted, not just the kid who you don't like.

In fact, reading this, I'm thinking that if my dcs ever are asked to participate in anything like this, I'd advise them to abstain and would explain to the teachers why. Because so many teachers have come on here to proudly say "yeah I do that all the time, well done us " . Honestly, we would have staged a protest at my school if this happened and we somehow found out. But then we were from a country where young people tended to be quite engaged in politics. I also did a degree in politics after school, as I loved it so much, so maybe my friends and I were more that way inclined.

Imagine if you had this at work; there obviously are roles the head and governors appoint. But, if you had a role where your fellow teachers got to vote you in and you put yourself forward and were elected, but your new head, who had been in the job for a whopping two days, said they thought the teachers' vote was all wrong and appointed someone else. Would you think "well done mate", "I applaud you", "you are awesome"?

@LolaSmiles

BigBlondeBimbo I would expect teachers to select students for sports teams and shows based on talent. The first year I auditioned for band I didn't get in. The following year I did because I was a better musician. Solos went to the best musicians and that is fair.

Equally if someone running for school council hasn't shown they have the skills or ideas then it's reasonable for them not to be a serious candidate.

I wouldn't want solos in choir going to the most likeable student, and I wouldn't want school council positions going to students arrogant enough to say "vote for me I'm popular".

Thankfully my school also does anonymous selection based on little manifestos and tries to build things into school life so children can shine based on their talents, not who has social capital in the playground.

So, you changed the system to make the election fairer, you didn't hold the elections, supposedly in good faith and then bin the votes you didn't like?

I would do it. I also rig the weekly random ticket prize draw.
The thing is that I know that the more ‘challenging’ pupils will probably have more in the pot as they are given them to encourage positive conduct but on the whole they could have been an utter pain in the arse all week so no way am I rewarding them with a prize and fuss in assembly.

I pull out a ticket and announce the name of the child that I’ve decided on whatever it says.
I do keep a record and make sure that each child has it at least once through the year though. Same with certificates.

@Kreacheriscleaning

I would do it. I also rig the weekly random ticket prize draw. The thing is that I know that the more ‘challenging’ pupils will probably have more in the pot as they are given them to encourage positive conduct but on the whole they could have been an utter pain in the arse all week so no way am I rewarding them with a prize and fuss in assembly.

I pull out a ticket and announce the name of the child that I’ve decided on whatever it says.
I do keep a record and make sure that each child has it at least once through the year though. Same with certificates.

So, again, why have the draw at all? It makes it appear as if everyone has a chance, when you know they really don't. Just reward children when they've had a good week (for them) and make sure everyone gets their moment, as you say you do.

Are the raffle prizes rigged too. And those money raising schemes with a prize every month. Can't believe people think this is OK. Are teachers in charge of the lottery too.

Because it’s a while school thing so I don’t have that option.
As a parent, would you really want me to allow the child that disrupted learning all week to win a prize just because their name came out of a box or would you prefer me to reward someone who had genuinely worked hard and behaved well?