The sixth graders at Calcutt Middle School, in Central Falls, shared their thoughts with me about the election of Barack Obama. The kids are, after all, among the many “little people” whose lives are eventually affected by the outcome of such star-studded elections. So, what do the kids think about the new leadership?

Calcutt’s students are urban, low-income, and 83 percent minority, so it was not a shocker that they and their families were Obama supporters. And the election made them unusually chatty. (I often hang out at Calcutt for the lunch periods on Wednesdays. Regularly hanging with kids keeps me and this column grounded in reality. Thank you, Calcutt.)

A boy with big happy eyes that looked like brown shooter marbles made the most charming statement: “My family picked Obama because he wants to lower taxes for middle-aged people and raise them on rich people.”

To be sure, middle-school kids parrot a lot of what they hear from the grown-ups in their lives, however inexactly. But they’re beginning to feel old enough to see and think about the wider world.

OK, I asked repeatedly, what’s important about this election?

“Well, duh,” sneered one boy with glasses and a big sassy attitude. “We’re studying the presidents in social studies right now. All of them. So we know that Obama is the first African-American to ever become president.” His table-mates agreed, looking very pleased.

A girl at a different table made the same observation, and bragged that she had an Obama shirt and Obama earrings.

“But they don’t make Obama earrings,” challenged another girl.

“Well, I got some,” snarled the first girl.

“Where do I get me some?” And instantly there was a pile-on as that table of girls strained to hear the answer. Trapped, the girl couldn’t remember, but promised to tell them when she did.

Overall, the kids brought up three issues, in ascending importance: immigration, global warming and the economy.

Immigration came up only three times. In a good example of pubescent group-think, three kids, at different lunch periods, shared the opinion that only family members should be able to cross the border. Other people should be kept out because there are already too many people. One said her family had recently lost their health care because the state didn’t have enough money to pay for so many people, so they kicked some people off.

Immigration was the only subject that didn’t get the kids all talking at once. When the brave three spoke, their pals sat and ate silently, watching each other and me.

But when a student mentioned global warming, the girls in particular went bonkers. “We’re just wrecking this place where we live,” said one with disgust. “People aren’t taking care of the environment,” complained another.

What, I asked, could a president do? They had to think. “Well, maybe he could pay some scientists to discover something that would help.” Another suggested that the president could “encourage people to walk and use less gas.” That seemed like a great idea to the others.

At a table of boys the first response was “The economy! The economy stinks.”

“What’s ‘the economy?’ ” asked a confident learner.

The first boy looked at me, but I deferred to him. After a moment he said, “It’s the money. It’s the support for the things that we need, like the loans for college.” (He really said “support.”)

The economy came up most often. At the third lunch, a sad-eyed girl said, “The economy is why everything is so expensive right now and why we can’t have stuff.”

Like what stuff?

A big, older-seeming girl with a long black ponytail said, “Well, like last week we didn’t have milk because it was just too expensive. So we had dry cereal. Then we didn’t have cereal, so at the end we just had black coffee. Last week was bad.”

Another girl blurted, “My mom makes me drink milk because what about the poor people who can’t even have milk?!”

“The poor people?!” demanded a boy at that table. “The poor people?!!” The girl might have meant the people back in her parents’ native country. Or maybe she doesn’t realize that Central Falls has Rhode Island’s highest concentration of poor people.

One girl’s mom works in a medical office full time, but with the prices going up, she took a job in a little grocery story, a bodega down the block. Now the kids can go get food when they need it because the owners just take the tab out of her paycheck. They hate it, though, because now Mom’s never home. “And I really like my mom.” (The girl next to her barked “I don’t.” This is middle school.)

At another table a girl hollered triumphantly, “Obama’s going to change everything by helping the poor people.” The rest of the table agreed, but looked over their shoulders to see if her outburst would get them in trouble. It did not.

The kids are happy about the election, but in general, they’re worried.

Julia Steiny, a former member of the Providence School Board, consults for government agencies and schools; she is co-director of Information Works!, Rhode Island’s school-accountability project. She can be reached at juliasteiny@cox.net , or c/o EdWatch, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902.