With the Nov. 3 general election peeking around the corner, Mercer Island High School civics instructor Jamie Robertson and his senior students have been engaged in insightful discussions during their remote learning sessions.

Robertson, who originally hails from Scotland and is a United States citizen, is teaching about half the senior students in his third year at MIHS. He estimates that about five to 10 percent of the students are eligible to vote, and as of Oct. 20, he knew of one student who had already cast his ballot.

He conducted a recent survey with 80 percent of his students, and two-thirds of them said they would be extremely likely to vote in the Nov. 3 election if they were of voting age.

“I think this kind of indicates that students are interested in this election at higher levels than normal,” Robertson said. “I think in general that this is a great time to be teaching civics, and anything to do with the way that our country operates and our government operates.”

Robertson said that remote learning inhibits more lively conversations — and he only teaches students for about two hours a week as opposed to the pre-pandemic four hours a week in person — but there’s still a strong connection and vital sharing of opinions on the issues.

While the issues on everyone’s minds aren’t necessarily of the positive sort, Robertson said, he noted that 80 percent of his students said at the beginning of the semester that it’s more important than normal to follow the news this year.

“You try to tailor what you teach around what students are interested in, and across my seniors, they clearly identified with three things that they thought were important: this election was one of them, the pandemic was the second and the death of George Floyd and the protests that followed George Floyd was the third event or issue that they were most interested in and most aware of,” Robertson said.

Normally, Robertson would spend a couple of weeks after the election discussing the Supreme Court, but he moved that section of his lesson plan forward following the death of associate justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the nomination of judge Amy Coney Barrett. Both the election and Supreme Court scenario are connected, he said.

In another part of Robertson’s survey, 75 percent of the students don’t feel the country is headed in the right direction, while about the same percentage of students feel Washington state is headed in the right direction. He said those marks may be somewhat related to the government’s response to COVID-19.

Whether they’re discussing the election, Supreme Court and more, Robertson said the students are passionate, but also respectful to different points of view.

“I enjoy working with them because I feel that I learn from them and I get a different perspective than the perspective that I grew up with,” said Robertson, who added that one of the primary reasons he became a United States citizen is to vote.

Robertson and his students will surely have much to discuss as the election results begin flashing on their screens on Nov. 3.