One of the most relevant topics of today is our nation’s president: Donald Trump. Whether you love him or hate him, it’s hard to deny that he’s making an impact. Some consider this to be a disastrous impact, while others praise him and couldn’t be happier about his work. One of the contributing factors to a person’s opinion on the president, and on politics in general, is their education. The most impactful part of school on political opinions is, without a doubt, social studies classes.

In an effort to analyze the impact of social studies classes on political opinions, and Trump specifically, I interviewed eight Elder students. I asked each student, two from each grade level, to rate Trump’s current presidency so far on a scale of ten.

Interestingly, the ratings dropped with each grade level. One of the freshmen rated Trump an 8/10, and the other a 9/10. The sophomores had differing ratings though. One of them gave Trump an 8/10, but the other wasn’t as satisfied, giving him a 5/10. Continuing the downward trend, both juniors settled on 4/10. The seniors were very unhappy with the president’s actions, rating him a 2/10 and a 0/10.

To connect these ratings to social studies classes, I asked them which classes they had taken. The freshmen had not yet taken a social studies class at Elder, and the sophomores had only taken one quarter of a history class. However, interestingly enough, the sophomore that rated Trump lower is currently taking AP World History, while the sophomore that rated him higher is taking World Cultures. Both juniors are in CCP American History. The seniors are split between Government and Econ. Clearly, Elder’s social studies classes are having quite a bit of effect on students’ political opinions.

Without a doubt, whichever political side you’re on, it’s impossible to deny that social studies classes have a huge effect on students in the USA.