TeenPact Day 2

(pictures at end of post)


Today was really enjoyable. We started off the morning with worship and a devotional. After that, we walked around the State House on prayer walks in our committees. We stopped in the Senate and House chambers, as well as near a statue honoring the military. I find it SO cool that we're able to walk around our State House and pray in public for our leaders. The prayer walks are one of my favorite things about TeenPact. Everything that we do is centered around God and how He is in the center of things.

We returned to the "house floor" (also known as Rhodes Center auditorium) after prayer walks. The newbies went on their first field experience, which I believe was interviewing lobbyists. Alumni stayed for the first session in the Alumni track--Past and Present Movements. As part of our homework, we were required to write an essay on two different movements: one past, one present. I wrote on the Anti-Vietnam War movement and the Tea Party movement. We were separated into groups based on the essays we wrote and had to present about the movement in front of the rest of the class. Another girl and I were the only ones brave enough to talk about the Vietnam movement. There was some really good discussion on that issue, as well as many of the others. Our session ended earlier than I would have liked due to something silly called "lunch".

Lunch is in your committees as well and it's also a super fun part of the day. We talked about bills for the first time and I'm convinced we got all the ridiculous one. There was one about making Call of Duty the state video game (Call of Duty people--don't kill me), one about making it illegal to kill and catch frogs and a couple other ones. One of the people in our group wrote something about Ohio seceding from the US and we passed that one. I'm really hoped it comes up in TPL. The funny thing about that bill is we had some non TeenPacters comment on it. We all meet in a cafeteria type setting to eat and after our clerk read the bill, several people at a nearby table applauded. They came up and talked to him afterwards, so that was kind of cool.

I also found another writer in my group, which is SO exciting. He's written 5 books, various short stories and some poems. At some point this week, I'm planning to tell him about One Year Adventure Novel and Kingdom Pen.

After lunch, we did a brief session of TPL, had a speaker and then  did another session of TPL. That's another part about TeenPact that I really like. Maybe I should just start saying I love the entire thing.

The last thing today (besides the test) were the primaries. There were four parties: Agrarian, Libertarian, Capitalist and Workers. I was put on the Agrarian party. Each party is allowed to select one gubernatorial (governor) candidate and three senatorial candidates. I ran for senator, but wasn't picked. It was still fun though. General elections are tomorrow. A friend of mine (Spencer) got the nomination in his party as the gubernatorial candidate. Hopefully he'll end up being governor.


Tomorrow the alumni are going to interview random people on the street and ask their opinion on current events and things like that. I'm really looking forward to it.

I also just realized that I should probably take more than three pictures. I'll try to better on Wednesday and Thursday.

Abbie and Kit-Kat being goofy.

So, naturally, I had to follow suit.

Everyone on the way home. They look a lot tireder than yesterday. :P

Teen Pact Day 1

Today was the first of our 4-day long government class called TeenPact. The Marysville group of kids (picture at end of post) arrived at our house around noon and we drove down to Columbus.

Upon arriving at the Rhodes Center, we met other TeenPacters and the staff. Today mainly consisted of learning the ground rules, TPL (Teen Pact Legislature) and committee break-ups. For the rest of the week, we'll get to pretend that we're representatives and debate bills in committees before presenting to the "house" or TPL. It's pretty fun. I'm on the Health and Aging committee, so we got assigned some interesting bills.

Before TPL started this afternoon, we did something called first reads. Each student is required to write at least one bill to be presented before the TPL. Everyone came up, read a short portion of the bill and then it was assigned to the different committees.

There were a number of humorous bills read during first reads. My favorite funny bill is from last year and it was to start doing the Hunger Games in the state of Ohio. Last year, my committee got this bill and we decided to move it to the "house" to be discussed. We actually passed the bill. 

Since committees had not yet had the opportunity to debate bills, we used one that the staff put together. It was on education and requiring all teachers (public, private, home) to receive certification in each subject that they teach. So, the homeschool parent would have to be "certified" in math, english, science and a large number of things. Thankfully, the bill did not pass.

We also heard a few lectures by a lobbyist and the director of the state TeenPact class. Tomorrow looks to be about the same. We'll be leaving the house at 7 AM (I'm not exactly looking forward to that) and class will go until 3 PM. I glanced briefly at the material for the Alumni track and it looks pretty awesome. But, I won't talk about that just yet. I'll keep you all in suspense for another day.

From left to right: Colton, Spencer, Curtis, Me, Kit-Kat, Abbie, Marisa and Lily.