Electing the President: The Electoral Process in Action

Betty M. See returned to college after the youngest of her four children entered kindergarten. She earned her BA in English and MA in reading. She has had a varied teaching career. She taught seventh- and eighth-grade language arts, was a middle school classroom teacher, teaching all subject areas, and for ten years worked with gifted students in grades 3-8 in Little Falls, New Jersey.

At each of these levels, she often used simulation activities to help students become involved in the learning process. In 1992, she received an A+ for Kids Teacher Network Award for a simulation activity, Celebrating Our Heritage.

Mock trials were among the favorite activities of her students, gifted and others alike. Finding little prepared material suitable for her students, she wrote trials using characters familiar to the students. These trials were the basis for her successful first book, Jury Trials in the Classroom. Her second book, Electing the President, started as a simulation to help students understand the election process when See taught fourth grade social studies. Later she adapted it for gifted students into a school-wide project for an actual presidential election. Her students proportionally allocated electoral votes to different classes and tabulated both popular and electoral results. Responses from classroom teachers were positive, stating that this simulation helped students understand the Electoral College concept and how the president was elected. Her most recent book, More Jury Trials in the Classroomwas published in 2007. As with the first book, she has created trials in which the participants are familiar. As before, there is also an added an element of humor to further pique the interest of the students.

See has retired from the classroom, but has never given up her love of teaching and writing. She and her husband, Bob, retired to Florida and live at the Leeward Air Ranch, where he flies his Piper Archer and she is editor of the community newsletter. In addition to editing, she regularly submits humorous columns about aviation and life in general.