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Social Studies 4: Democracy 27 Views
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Description:
Today we're learning about democracy. You know, like when you get to vote for the way things are done...or at least vote for people to vote for you and trust that they'll do it right.
Transcript
- 00:04
[Dino and Coop singing]
- 00:13
Student council elections are
- 00:15
one the most exciting times of the year. [Students walking off a school bus]
- 00:18
We know politics seem super boring right now, but trust us. [Students on stage at the presidential debate]
- 00:21
When issues like increasing the number of pizza party days that are coming up, politics are
Full Transcript
- 00:26
gonna suddenly get real interesting. [Crowd starts cheering]
- 00:28
It's a time when brave students choose to run against one another in hopes of being
- 00:32
voted into office to serve on the student council.
- 00:35
It's also a great excuse for people to plaster the walls with photos of themselves without [Student poster]
- 00:39
getting into any trouble for it.
- 00:41
Student elections represent an aspect of democracy, which is typically defined a form of government [Coop pointing at a blackboard]
- 00:45
that allows the people of a nation to have a voice in decision making through voting.
- 00:49
Democracy usually comes in two flavors: pure and representative. [Man holding two ice cream cones labelled pure and representative]
- 00:53
Pure definitely sounds like the better one…it's just so…pure.
- 00:56
But let's take a look at each one first.
- 00:59
Pure democracies exist when every single person has a say with their individual vote. [Dino pointing at a blackboard]
- 01:04
As you can imagine, that kind of democracy isn't exactly easy in places that have large
- 01:09
populations.
- 01:10
Can you imagine if every single person in the United States had to personally vote on
- 01:15
every single bill in Congress?
- 01:17
The lineups into Capitol Hill would be longer than the lineups for the newest iPhone! [Massive queue at the Capitol]
- 01:21
Since pure democracies are pretty much impossible for most societies today, we generally opt
- 01:26
for the other type of democracy, a representative democracy. [The pure democracy ice cream melts and falls to the floor]
- 01:30
Representative democracies are governments where the people elect officials – like
- 01:33
senators, congressmen and other politicians – to make decisions on their behalf. [Coop pointing at a blackboard]
- 01:38
Representative democracies are also known as republics.
- 01:41
An example of a republic that you're probably familiar with is the Galactic Republic in [Darth Vader]
- 01:45
Star Wars led by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.
- 01:49
On second thought, maybe this isn't the best example, considering the seemingly well-intentioned
- 01:53
Palpatine actually kinda turned out to be evil. [Palpatine laughing]
- 01:56
Not so good.
- 01:57
A much better example would the United States government, which is a representative democracy. [The US flag]
- 02:01
That's because the U.S. Elects member of Congress in addition to their state and local leaders.
- 02:07
The jobs of these elected officials is to vote based on the voice of the people they
- 02:12
represent.
- 02:13
And not like on the show The Voice, we mean based upon their opinions. [A no sign appears over a picture of The Voice]
- 02:15
The U.S.
- 02:16
Government is the way it is because of a super-mega-totally-awesomely-powerful document that came about on September 17, [The founding fathers]
- 02:22
1787.
- 02:23
You might have heard of it before, it's typically known as the United States Constitution. [The constitution]
- 02:28
This document outlines exactly how the United States is to be governed, and remains an extremely [Dino pointing at a blackboard]
- 02:33
important document to this day.
- 02:35
Throughout the document, words like “elect” and “vote” are found all over, all of
- 02:40
which ultimately outline how in order for the United States to really be the United [Quotes of the constitution referring to democracy are shown]
- 02:44
States, the government must be a representative democracy.
- 02:48
Ultimately, all of this points to how important it is to pay attention to politics and to [Girl sat with a salad puts her thumbs up]
- 02:53
vote once you reach the legal voting age.
- 02:55
If you want your voice to be heard, the best way to do it is to vote! [Other students look disappointed]
- 02:58
Okay, maybe the best way is to yell into an elephant-sized megaphone at the top of a Skyscraper. [Boy shouting "No more healthy food" at the top of a building]
- 03:03
But voting is a close second.
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