It took more planning than usual for Trina Poole to prepare for classes Monday.
By 7:30 a.m., her first class of students at Stow-Munroe Falls High School sorted themselves into their desks, young women on one side and young men on the other side of the room — just like partisans settling into a political debate.
Poole made her way down the middle toward two life-size cardboard cutouts, one of Republican Donald Trump and the other Democrat Hillary Clinton.
As the class began to make sense of the second presidential debate, there was a pause.
“Well, it isn’t like we just plucked them out of nowhere,” Poole said, her hand resting on a grinning cardboard Trump with two thumbs up. “We voted for them.”
In her 15 years at Stow, Poole has never had quite the teaching aid she has this year — what many consider a train wreck of an election.
In the spring, before her last batch of seniors graduated, Bernie Sanders had inspired many of them to learn.
This semester, with the major-party choices winnowed down to perhaps the most disliked candidates in history, Poole has been busy fielding curve balls and defending the American political process amid cynicism.
Hope in youth
Poole’s students are surprisingly upbeat as they express the same disgust in politics that many adults do.
But the teacher sees in them a wide-eyed, anything’s-possible attitude that gives her hope for the future.
“I don’t like it when people say ‘we’re screwed either way,’ ” Poole said, not shying from the apathy expressed by disenchanted voters who talk about the lesser of two evils or how the world will end if one or the other is elected. “I’m a little more optimistic than others and I think it’s because I teach high schoolers. And I hear the things you say. And I see the things you do. And I realize it is much bigger than [Trump or Clinton].”
The lesson Poole offered her seniors is that regardless of who is in the White House, governing requires coalition building between the branches of government, with other nations and even across party lines.
Emily Hickman, 18, took the lesson and considered Trump’s ban on Muslims (he calls it “extreme vetting”) or the argument from the right that Clinton would confiscate guns (she’s said nothing of taking firearms from law-abiding, mentally competent citizens).
She dismisses these as examples of electioneering, nothing more.
“Our country is built in a way that one person cannot destroy it all,” added Dustin Caudill, 17.
Deep thought
Poole leads her students into conversation.
They decide how to sort out the discussion.
She plays devil’s advocate constantly.
In each class, she asked the students things like what they made of Trump calling Americans stupid or how Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment haunted her.
She broached the sexist comments Trump made in 2005 wearing a microphone that was turned on.
Poole asked why, after so many other missteps, this should rattle his support.
The students, half of whom support Clinton while a quarter remain undecided, thought the most recent comments were par for the course in this campaign.
Then she asked students what they thought of the Washington Post waiting two days before the debate to release the video.
The students didn’t think it was a coincidence.
When a Trump-supporting student, in the heat of a political debate told another student, “well your argument is just stupid” — Poole demanded that she elaborate.
When the class brought up the candidates’ conflicting view of whether to embrace Syrian refugees, Poole challenged them to consider the role of government as a humanitarian force in the world or an isolationist stance.
Example behavior
In each class, she asked how many would vote the way their parents do. Many raised their hands, but not all.
“I don’t know who my parents like,” said Jonathan Holtz, 17, who supports Clinton. “If I know that they’re voting for Trump, I am not going to want to talk to them because I don’t want to fight with my parents.”
His classmates laughed at his predicament.
But politics has the power to divide — even in families that share values.
“They’re crazy,” Skylar Montoney said of the females in her family who support Trump. “They don’t know what they’re talking about. They read yellow journalism.”
Montoney said her conservatism, nurtured by her family, doesn’t get between her and her best friend, Meah McCallister, a Clinton supporter.
The 17-year-olds exhibit a sense of maturity that allows them to discuss politics without offending, or becoming offended.
By the numbers
The Beacon Journal prepared a short survey for 65 of Poole’s students, all seniors in her advanced placement American government class.
A third are eligible to vote.
Assuming they all could vote, 35 said they would support Clinton; seven for Trump; five for Libertarian Gary Johnson and one for Jill Stein of the Green Party. A staggering one-quarter — 17 — of the students are undecided.
Only one said he or she would be happy with the candidates on the presidential ballot this year.
On the debate, no student said Clinton or Trump fully addressed the public’s concerns in the town hall setting.
Some 30 students said Clinton won the debate.
Three said Trump won.
The remaining 25 said both candidates walked away losers.
The students were dismayed at the time the moderators and candidates devoted to pointing out character flaws, whether Clinton was trustworthy or Trump’s lewd “locker room banter.”
Issues matter more to 48 (74 percent) of the students.
A whopping 72 percent said they feel less interested in running for public office after considering the events, debates and headlines of this presidential year.
Yet as a group, they are extremely motivated and confident.
Some 33 students said they rely most heavily on themselves to form their political beliefs. Other reliable sources included their parents and online news websites.
They put the least faith in their friends when forming political attitudes. The teenagers also gave little importance to newspapers and social media.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug .