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College Park Friends Community School seventh-grader Kiva Birck, 12, stood up and stared directly across the table into the eyes of classmate Nora Langer.

"That is a complete mischaracterization," she shouted at Langer as she slammed her fist on the desk in front of her.

At that moment, Birck of Beltsville, portraying Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) defended an attack on his health care policy that was made by Langer, 13, who was standing in for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) at the Friends School's mock debate on Tuesday.

"It seemed really hard at first but I'm kind of glad we did it," Birck said. "At first I thought that McCain wasn't as good as Obama, but I learned that if he was president it wouldn't be completely terrible. If I could, I'd still rather vote for Obama."

As a private school, the Friends school was open on Election Day, and while millions of Americans had already cast their vote, 22 seventh- and eighth-graders were debating as either Obama, McCain, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) or Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), trying to win the heavily coveted votes of the first- through sixth-graders.

Each topic - Iraq, the economy, the environment and health care - had two students playing McCain or Palin and two students playing Obama or Biden.

Langer, from Takoma Park, said she felt the Obama side won the debate.

"I think it was really good," she said. "I'm personally for Obama and I think my team won. We were just better."

Langer said throughout the process, she learned a lot about the health care problems facing the country and each candidate's proposal to address it.

"I learned a whole lot," she said. "I think I was really well prepared. It was really complicated. I didn't really know about health care and everything was kind of new to me."

Langer said she could now explain each candidate's health care philosophy.

"I don't know the fundamental differences between the two, but I could tell you what each of them is doing," she said.

Birck said it was fun debating as the candidate she didn't support and said she thought the environment was the most important topic discussed.

"I thought climate change was really important," she said. "The climate change [debaters] and I helped each other with our speeches and practiced with each other."

Connie Belfiore, director of admissions and advancement at the Friends school, said the mock debate helps to inspire activism within the community.

"Hopefully, they'll continue to be active," she said. "We encourage them as they go on to high school and college to continue to be leaders."

She said students gain an interest in politics by participating in the debate, as opposed to reading about it or hearing others talk about it.

"It brings the whole political process alive for them," she said. "They understand what their parents are going through in making the decisions."

During the preparation for the debate Belfiore said part of the student's homework was to talk about politics with their families.

"Students were encouraged to talk to their parents and get insight from them," she said. "Some students got involved in the political processes in their neighborhood. They put up signs for their candidate and participated to the extent that they could."

E-mail Jonah Schuman at jschuman@gazette.net.