COAL GROVE — How does the federal government work?

Some Dawson-Bryant High School students got a little insight Wednesday when U.S. Congressman Bill Johnson visited the school.

“We were invited by the school to talk to their government class,” Johnson, a Republican from Marietta, said. “I’m always thrilled to talk to young people. These are our future leaders.”

Johnson spent an hour speaking and taking questions from the students about the intricacies of the American government.

“They need to understand how our system works, the major issues affecting our nation,” Johnson said. “Some of them by the way are going to be voting in November. It’s important now that they understand what those issues are, so they can make an informed choice.”

Some of the students came away with a better understanding of politics and said they appreciated Johnson’s visit.

“I thought everything was very interesting that I heard today,” Haley Johnson, a student, said. “Politics intrigue me, just being able to hear what he had to say, his thoughts and beliefs on the White House that I would never know otherwise.”

Other students found the visit beneficial, even though they might not agree with all of Johnson’s views.

“I think it was very constructive,” Jonathan Bollinger said. “We’ve been learning about Congress and it was good to be able to meet a Congressman. A lot of his views I agree with but we still have differences. I disagreed with some of the things he was saying. It was good to have the experience of meeting him. You don’t get that chance very often.”

Monica Mahlmeister, Dawson-Bryant High School student government teacher, said it was good for the students to be able to speak directly to someone in government.

“I wanted them to be able to meet someone in government, so they could actually get a real life account of what we are learning about,” Mahlmeister said. “Hopefully the experience will inspire them to be active citizens as they leave this class and go forward.”

Johnson said after the question and answer session that he views the battle between Democrats and Republicans as a natural part of running the government.

“Our founding fathers put in a government system of checks and balances that demanded debate. It demanded agonizing deliberation. That’s why they set it up the way that they did,” Johnson said. “When you hear the term that the wheels of the government run slow, they turn slow for a reason because our founding fathers intended them to turn slow. They wanted us to think long and hard before we change what they had put in place. In the good times, that’s great. We can sail on that wave and move America forward. In the bad times, in the tough times, and we are in some tough economic times, where we have some major issues to resolve, it’s going to be a painstaking process to get people to come around the table and agree on what those common sense solutions are.

“I’m interested with how the government is running right now, I think obviously we all know there are problems in America right now, we all know that we are always going to have problems. I think how they (Congress) handle it and how they believe it should be handled is very interesting, everyone thinks differently.”