Please Vote For Me

Take a c

lass of Chinese 3rd graders, tell them that rather than the teacher picking the next class monitor, they will be voting on the choice, and give them a week to campaign. See what happens. It quickly becomes clear that while seemingly this was created to explore the contrast between the Democratic and Chinese CommunistTotalitarian styles of government, this child’s contest is nothing more than a classic power struggle, with all the delicious backstabbing, plotting, and conniving that goes along with it.

Why Democracy - Please Vote for Me from 自曲新闻 on Vimeo.

Discussion and/or Written Response Questions:

The children at the beginning of the film were unable to define democracy. Do you think American children would have trouble coming up with a definition? What is your definition of democracy?
Do you think the way the election was structured was fair? Why or why not?
Why were other children in the class crying when Xu Xiaofei (the girl candidate) became upset? Would an incident like this have happened with students in the U.S. or other countries—that is, children jeering a candidate for a class office?
Were you surprised by any of the behavior on the part of the children? Please explain.
Are you satisfied with the outcome of the class monitor election? Why or why not?
In your opinion, did the election for class monitor work as an exercise in democracy? What do you think the children learned from this experience? What did you learn from this experiment?