VP Debate as Exam Skills Teaching Moment

Sure, the Biden/Palin VP debate in St. Louis seems like years ago, but it is worth noting that it provides a wonderful teaching moment. In exam taking, students struggle with answering the call of the question. If I tell the students to assume that a contract has been formed, and to tell me whether that contract is enforceable, many will still go into a diatribe about offer and acceptance. So, I think it far from partisan to note that this exchange during the VP debate provides for a great teaching moment about what it looks like when a student does not answer the call of the question:

IFILL: Governor, please if you want to respond to what he said about Senator McCain’s comments about health care?

PALIN: I would like to respond about the tax increases. We can speak in agreement here that darn right we need tax relief for Americans so that jobs can be created here. Now, Barack Obama and Senator Biden also voted for the largest tax increases in U.S. history. Barack had 94 opportunities to side on the people’s side and reduce taxes and 94 times he voted to increase taxes or not support a tax reduction, 94 times.

Now, that’s not what we need to create jobs and really bolster and heat up our economy. We do need the private sector to be able to keep more of what we earn and produce. Government is going to have to learn to be more efficient and live with less if that’s what it takes to reign in the government growth that we’ve seen today. But we do need tax relief and Barack Obama even supported increasing taxes as late as last year for those families making only $42,000 a year. That’s a lot of middle income average American families to increase taxes on them. I think that is the way to kill jobs and to continue to harm our economy.

Lest we be accused of taking this exchange out of context, the full transcript is here.

[Meredith R. Miller]