Students gather at Wheaton North to watch debate

Being enrolled in a government class during a presidential election year always makes high school a little more exciting.

It's so exciting, in fact, that several dozen kids from Wheaton North High School and Wheaton Warrenville South attended a viewing party of the presidential debate Monday night at Wheaton North.

"The idea is to get students out there participating," said Wheaton North government teacher Hayley Lotspeich, adding that the school has hosted viewing parties for gubernatorial and presidential debates for about 15 years. "The goal is to have them be active citizens."

Wheaton North Junior Samantha Towne said, "I think it is very heated between the two candidates." She added that she thinks "the topics are really hard to debate on because there are certain sides that could go either way."

Wheaton North's Norberto Lopez, 16 who is not supporting either side, said, "I am just trying to inform myself on what their ideas are."

In class, the Wheaton North students have been discussing the philosophies behind the Democratic and Republican parties, what it means to be liberal or conservative, and the ways Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton do and don't follow those patterns. They are also learning about polls and the electoral college, and how that is changing the candidates' strategies.

"What's exciting is the interest level is high, but there's also more misinformation to read through," Lotspeich said. "It does lead to a lot of class discussions about fact-checking and presentation style, propaganda and persuasion."

Aside from viewing the election, some of the students are also working for the Mark Kirk and Tammy Duckworth campaigns, serving as election judges on Election Day and helping the League of Women Voters host a candidate night in October.