Fiscal. Budget. Loans.

When learning about the U.S. government’s finances in Social Studies class, even just seeing certain words in a textbook can put a teenager to sleep at their desk. So when the unit came around for Sedona Red Rock High School juniors and seniors in Patricia Falsetto’s class, the long-term substitute tried to make it fun.

“We were doing the budgeting, the presiden­tial cabinet — how the process has evolved,” Falsetto said. “And then [in the textbook] was a political cartoon for deter­mining the funding of agencies, and people were commenting on that.”

Falsetto ran with the students’ natural interest in the political cartoons, and she soon taught them about how during early elec­tions, like during President An d r ew J a c k s o n ’s campaign in 1828 — 103 years before the invention of TV and 155 years before the internet — political cartoons were plastered on billboards and pamphlets across the country to rally public support for or against a candidate.

Falsetto had the students get into groups and make their own political cartoons on the current U.S. budget.

From stick-figures representing the political parties, to life-like sketches of dragons blowing fire on the federal bank, all sorts of artistic talent — or effort — shown through, along with students’ knowledge of the subject matter surfacing in a creative, tangible form.

“Some of these students you wouldn’t even know that they would work on the projects and finish them,” Falsetto said. “I’m very surprised and happy, and it also gives students that are good in one area, like art, to know that there is a place in politics for art.”

Falsetto said that she thought some students were more invested in the topics at hand due to the interac­tive aspect of the drawings than they would have been otherwise. Knowing the students were going to be presenting their artwork and its meaning to the class was another motivating factor for them.

“It’s easy to turn off a book. But it’s not so easy to turn off when you have to present,” Falsetto said. “It also was a teacher assess­ment when I heard the information. Like, ‘they got that, they got that.’”

Falsetto became a “roving” substitute with the school district when West Sedona School’s Montes-sori track closed a few years back due to budget cuts. As a Montessori “directress” for pre-school to second graders, Falsetto used hands-on and research-based learning — some­thing that she translated into her U.S. Government classes at the high school.

“You integrate as much as you can to make an impres­sion on the subject matter,” Falsetto said. “I mean, how boring is reading out of the textbook? So a lot of this is not only for them, it’s for me too as a teacher. I want to be excited about my class.”

Even though Falsetto was only their teacher during the interim after the original teacher quit in mid- November and before the district hired another one to start after winter break, Falsetto was invested in the students’ success.

“I found when I took over the class I had to contem­porize it, I had to make it [about] what’s happening with them,” she said.

Falsetto had the students look up national news­paper articles and choose which ones were important to them.

“I think for them, there’s so many other things that are important in their life. For them to have politics as important — it’s kind of like on the bottom of the list,” Falsetto said. “So to get them at least a little bit interested in our government process is a big step for them.… I have been very, very pleasantly surprised and encouraged.”

Since many seniors are 18 or will be during this year’s elections, Falsetto realized the impor­tance of getting them inter­ested enough in politics to make an informed voting decision.

“My goal in the U.S. Government class is to explain to them, not only do we look at the elections on the president level, but also on the city council and those kinds of things, and look at their policies.”

With the impeachment then looming, many of the students’ cartoons included President Donald Trump — whether depicted as a cheese puff, with a thought bubble that said “I love guns and impeachs,” or sitting on a rocking chair with a bowl of popcorn in front of a big screen television tuned to the news, “Civilians are losing their homes due to debt,” scrolling across the bottom.

“We can laugh at all the different candidates. Trump was the obvious one because he’s the presi­dent, but we talked about Biden, we talked about all the Democratic candidates, and a lot of times they don’t really want to talk about that but I think that’s our job.”

Falsetto said that despite some split opinions, the class discussions never got too heated.

“One of the things to remember is that there is no opinion on my part as the teacher. I’m very neutral,” she said. “And the discus­sion — in order to give them another lesson — is how do you discuss when you have difference of opinion?

“It’s very, very cool when you see them opening up and discussing … I’ve used a lot of great websites that give pros and cons on any subject matter that you may have. So getting them used to looking a little bit further, a little bit deeper into a candidate.”