It started as a simple discussion one day in teacher Jon Hammer and teacher Linda Shertel’s seventh grade academically talented class, as part of the class’ current events in science.
The class was discussing the proposed $2.3 billion budget cut that President Bush has proposed in terms of global warming prevention and the general environment.
“The topic prompted such a discussion that we decided to take it a step further and write letters to the editor,” Hammer explained. “The majority of the class all had different views, so we thought it would be interesting to have them write down their opinions and present them to the Weehawken Reporter, to see if they could be published.”
The letters will be published in this newspaper in future weeks.
The letters and the students’ verbal complaints about the topic make it clear that these are not your typical 13-year-olds whose concerns are limited to the latest MTV video or the Worldwide Wrestling Federation. “People think that because we’re kids, we don’t know what we’re talking about,” said Stephanie Orru last week. “But we know a lot. And we have opinions on a lot of different things. This was a good way to show people that we do know and that we do care.”
Most of the members of the class expressed strong political beliefs – most of which were partisan – before the exercise. Meaning that the Republican students definitely backed Bush’s stance and the Democrats were against it.
Of course, with Weehawken being part of a heavily Democratic area such as Hudson County, a good number of the students were against the proposed budget cuts.
However, don’t dare try to push that idea past 13-year-old Joseph Cimino, who might be declaring himself a candidate on some Republican ticket any day now.
“I have a strong interest in politics and I am a Republican,” Cimino proudly said. “I think we have too much to worry about than global warming. Our economy is falling backwards. There’s a crisis going on in the Middle East. The Chinese government refuses to turn over our plane. Those are more important issues. Global warming doesn’t fit in at this time. It might not affect us for the next 30 to 50 years. We should wait until we clear the other issues up first.”
Katie Gross vehemently opposed Little Mr. Limbaugh.
“I disagree with Joey,” Gross said. “He said that global warming won’t affect us. I don’t think that’s true. We’re so close to the water and with the heat rising every day, we could be in danger. Glaciers are melting all the time, so the rivers could flood. We can’t all relocate along the coast. It’s definitely a big issue and the cutbacks are not smart.”
Shawn Dorman agreed with Gross.
“The signs are everywhere,” Dorman said. “We feel the effects. Winter begins faster every year and so does summer. We feel the effects now. If I have kids, they’ll feel them even more. I’m against Bush with these cutbacks.”
“What happens 10 years from now, when Bush isn’t around?” John Burnett asked. “And the temperatures are over 100 every day? I feel that if we’re going to allow these cuts, then we should have some research done beforehand.”
Other students spoke about the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, or about why military spending it going up while environmental spending is going down.
But most of them followed the party line.
“I kind of followed the lines,” Romin Vargas said. “I know President Bush is supposed to find ways to make cutbacks, but if he does it to the environment, it would be going back in time and setting us all back.”
“I think President Bush is going against his word, saying that he’s going to do what’s good for the American people,” Stephanie Orru said. “This is not good for the people.”
“If we keep waiting until 2010 to do the research about global warming,” Oscar Lee noted, “then it might be way too late.”
Hammer said that the students were not permitted to sit on the fence in the issue. They had to have an opinion, one way or the other.
“I think it was a good experience for all of us, to be able to put our opinions into words,” Emily Purcell said. “I got the impression that the students went home and talked about the topic with their parents,” Hammer said. “You want to have that interaction between the students and their parents. They had to do research and I think it gave them a good perspective on the issues, one way or another.”
Mario Flores probably summed up the topic the best.
“Maybe 100 or 200 years from now, we could find another planet to live on where there isn’t a global warming problem,” Flores said.