This morning I was thinking about the class elections we held in school, particularly elementary school. They didn’t mean much as far as any “governing,” but were frankly a popularity contest.
We took them seriously until they were over, and then we went back to arguing who held the title for the most jacks scooped up while bouncing a small rubber ball during recess.
We had rules for our elections. They weren’t written on the chalkboard, but we knew what they were.
First of all, you never, ever voted for yourself. I have no idea how this came about, but it was firm. The worst thing you could say about a winner was that she voted for herself.
I realize now that this is ridiculous. If you believe you’re the best candidate, of course you would vote for yourself. But we were kids, and this seemed to us the height of conceit. A leader should be modest and open to the idea that someone else might be just as good as we were.
The second rule was that once the votes were in, that was that. If you were disappointed, you kept it to yourself. If you grumbled about it not being “fair” you were called a sore loser. Not something anyone wanted to have tagged to their name.
The third rule was to remember that that there was always a next time. You could run again, maybe for another class office or an afterschool club. There were always opportunities to test your leadership,, particularly as we grew older and went to junior and senior high. We began to realize it wasn’t a popularity contest, and voted for the person we thought most capable. And yes, if that person was us, we cast our vote accordingly.
And if we lost, we shrugged it off and volunteered to help on committees.
I think we have forgotten the lessons we learned in school, and I’m not just talking about classes in government or civics, although I think those should be mandatory for every student starting at about the fourth grade with grave emphasis on the Constitution and what it means.
And perhaps it should be a mandatory sentence for those caught up in the sore loser mindset as well.