SAN ANTONIO – Esther Perez Carvajal Elementary fifth-grade teacher Danielle Salgado admits teaching her kids about this year’s U.S. Election and its voting process without negativity was hard.
From the sheer amount of malicious and sometimes false information that is hard enough for grown-ups to sort through, let alone a kid, Salgado could have settled and talked about the textbook definition of an election.
However, Salgado created a way to cut through the political clutter with the help of two unique teacher aides: two bearded dragons named Charizard and Eevee who are campaigning against each other in a race to become the school’s master pet.
Each has its own campaign slogan and theme song. Charizard’s is: “Never Back Down, Never Give Up Crickets,” and Eevee’s is “Girl on Fire.”
As for songs, Charizard jams to “Roar” by Katy Perry and Eevee bumps to “Girl on Fire” by Alicia Keys while they roam around, eat insects and sunbathe during recess.
“I think the kids are even more excited about the campaign here at school than the federal election campaign, but we’re putting them through the whole process,” Salgado said. “They all got registered to vote, and on Election Day, they vote for their favorite bearded dragon.”
In terms of how she’s connecting the reptiles to teaching, she said the kids are using their persuasive writing and art skills to advocate for their preferred dragon fairly and accurately.
While she did show them negative ads from this year’s election, Salgado wanted this one to be positive and clean.
That message was echoed by two students who spoke to us about their experience and how they are advocating for a certain dragon to their friends.
Angel and Jayleen, the dragons’ caretakers, pointed out one animal’s qualities over the other.
For Charizard, Angel said he’s better because he eats his veggies and speaks Spanish like, “Yo tengo hambre,” which translates to “I’m hungry” in English. He added Salgado’s teaching method has been fun and informative for him, but he expressed positive vibes toward Eevee.
“It was cool whenever I heard that he (Charizard) was going to be in the election. I learned about voting. I learned that you have a say, and it’s tied to something,” Angel said.
For Eevee, Jayleen said she’s better because she’s more adventurous and fun. She admits she didn’t know much about elections, and although it was difficult to learn, she liked it because it was something new.
Although she liked Eevee, she also expressed positive vibes toward Charizard, saying she didn’t know much about him.
“It’s been way more better with pets,” Jayleen said regarding Salgado’s teaching method.
Their votes for each dragon were cast through custom-voting registration cards created by City Year Team Leader Nicholas Sandoval.
Sandoval told KSAT that he loved Salgado’s idea when she approached him, and he felt the registration cards added an extra boost for the kids to grasp what an election was.
“It gives kids the chance to learn something new that they don’t have a lot of exposure to because they just watch the news and see stuff about elections,” Sandoval said. “I never had anything like this when I was a kid. It took me a while to learn the true details when it came to voting. A lot of the kids are really passionate about this.”
Their votes will collected from each grade, and the winner will be revealed on Election Day, Sandoval said.
No matter the result, Salgado said she told her kids that she wants everyone to celebrate the winner.
Because for her, it was always about teaching them in a way they will remember forever.
“I think it’s really important. I think we know overall that the Latino vote is very underused,” Salgado said. “If we can get seven and eight-year-olds excited about bearded dragons running, I think you can get any child excited about voting.”
