civics

JROTC students excel: ‘Comes with being part of something much bigger than themselves’

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Ashby Foote, city councilman in Jackson, Mississippi, is a big fan of the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, and for good reason.

Foote recently penned an editorial for the Clarion Ledger that offers his take on the program amid a district overhaul designed to reinvent education in Jackson Public Schools, and why he believes district officials should pursue opportunities to expand the Corp’s  influence on students.

“ … While new leadership works to reinvent and reinvigorate Jackson Public Schools (JPS), it is worth highlighting an old program within JPS that excels at the highest level – the Junior Officers’ Training Corps. In the critical metric of graduation rates, JROTC achieved 95 percent, far surpassing JPS’ 70 percent, Mississippi’s 83 percent and the national high school rate of 84 percent,” Foote wrote.

“But it doesn’t stop there. JROTC cadets also outperform in daily attendance, grade point average, ACT scores and acceptance to institutions of higher learning.”

Foote explained that JPS’ JROTC program, a staple in the district since 1936, initially started as a means of preparing young men for the possibility of war, but gradually evolved into a program with a laser like focus on citizenship, character development, and successful living after school.

The councilman contends “JROTC’s dramatic outperformance year after year doesn’t happen by chance,” and pointed to the instructors – all retired military with 20 years or more of experience – for offering students something that “goes far beyond education credentials.”

“They bring a can-do, purpose-driven culture that comes with being part of something much bigger than themselves,” Foote wrote. “They bring experiences from lives lived across the world, and in some instances, under the most adverse of conditions. And they bring organizational values including structure, ethics, discipline, accountability, mutual respect and a passion for success.”

The program also offers students “an impressive array of extracurricular programs” each summer, including camps at the Nanotoxicity Computational Chemistry Institute, National Flight Academy at Pensacola Naval Air Station, Mississippi State Engineering/Geosciences STEM Camp, William Carey Health Careers STEM camp, and the Southern Miss Computer Science/Cybersecurity Camp, among other training opportunities.

“JORTC works,” Foote wrote. “It works because it brings the right capabilities and a tough love commitment to critical tasks that are vital to the long-term future of JPS and Jackson.”

Researchers at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia point to importance of creating “thick” and “dense” moral cultures like the JROTC in “The Content of Their Character,” a summary of research into character education in a wide variety of schools.

Researchers noted that “the source and setting for moral and civic education matter – that the ‘thickness’ of cultural endowments and the ‘density’ of moral community within which those endowments find expression are significant in the formation of personal and public virtue in children.”

Educators looking to delve deeper into character formation, and the virtues promoted by JROTC, can find resources at Virtue Insight. The site is a blog by the UK’s Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues that more closely examines the virtues that support strong moral character – temperance, courage, justice, and practical wisdom – through the observations of former priest and theologian Thomas Aquinas.

NY students interview vets, use stories to create interactive book

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Fourth graders in Pittsford, New York’s Thornell Road Elementary School are making some new friends in their community and chronicling their stories in a book about service and sacrifice.

Teacher Toni Stevens-Oliver’s class recently interviewed 23 veterans from the Rayson-Miller American Legion Post 899 to get an intimate understanding of why they joined the service and how it shaped their lives. The students then chronicled the stories in a new book called “Veteran’s Voices” – which also features an online app to view videos of the veterans in their own words, WHAM reports.

“The book was a way for us to connect one-on-one personally a student with a veteran and get to know each other through the veteran telling their story and the student writing that story,” Stevens-Oliver told the news site.

The veterans “were blown away by the interest the students showed, the respect the children showed,” she said. “We hope our book inspires people to ask their local veterans what their story is.”

Students told WHAM they learned a lot from the class project.

“Freedom isn’t free, and the veterans sacrificed a lot of things,” student James Kazacos said. “They sacrificed time with their family, holidays.”

“They are just like normal people, except that they step up and do a job that takes courage,” classmate Jake Schreyer added.

Al Herdkoltz, commander of the Rayson-Miller post, said the effort gives him hope the stories of local veterans will not be forgotten.

“They actually had an interest and they were my friends,” he said. “I felt very comfortable and at ease. I felt I had a new friendship even though there was quite a bit of age difference, they were my friends.”

Steven-Oliver shared the project on Shutterfly and posted supporting documents to her Pittsford Schools website as a template for teachers looking to pursue a similar project. The school page also features a special shout out from Sen. Rich Funke acknowledging students’ hard work.

“To take the time to not only interview our veterans, but to take those interviews and incorporate them into an interactive book was special, not just to them but to all of us who care about our veterans,” Funke said in a video message.

Researchers at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture stress the importance of developing a sense of responsibility for and ownership of something larger than students’ self-interests. In The Content of Their Character, researchers noted how rural schools are particularly strong at fostering connections to broader spheres of moral obligation through immigration, religion and the military.

“In addition to building greater knowledge of cultures and societies outside of the U.S.,” researchers wrote, great teachers “were aiming primarily to build social-perspective taking, empathy and general critical thinking skills.”

Much of the work centers on gratitude, and the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues offers a plethora of research on the subject, including the public’s perception of gratitude and links between the virtue and service.

“More recently, the Centre has extended its focus on gratitude by examining the effects of teaching interventions on comprehensions of gratitude and related virtues,” according to the website.

Schools focus on civics to bridge political divides, engage students in government and community

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Civics is making a comeback in schools, sparked in part by the 2016 election.

“This town is liberal and I thought that was the way of the world,” Mamaroneck High School freshman Jacobi Kandel told The New York Times. “I totally thought Hillary was going to be the first female president. Then I woke up and said, ‘What’s going on?’”

Kandel is among dozens of students at the New York school who were inspired by the 2016 election to sign up for a new four-year program called Original Civic Research and Action, which tasks students with developing a useful solution to an ongoing problem in the community.

The initiative is part of a broader push in schools and statehouses across the country aimed at engaging students in government and service. Only Maryland and the District of Columbia require community service and civics classes for graduation, while 11 states have no civics requirement. Nine states and the District of Columbia require a full year of civics instruction, and 30 states require a half-year, the Times reports.

Experts said a laser focus on core subjects like math and English have consumed class time previously devoted to civics, and the result is reflected in the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, which showed only 18 percent of 8th graders scored at or above proficient in American History in 2014. Only 23 percent of students met the threshold for civics, according to the news site.

The disengagement seems to continue after high school, with less than half of 18- to 24-year-olds voting in the 2016 election nationwide, the lowest turnout among all age groups.

The renewed focus on civics in schools aims to both boost engagement and counter the divisive political culture. Lawmakers in several states are also considering legislation to increase civics requirements for students, in some cases with mandatory citizenship tests.

Mamaroneck High School government and history teacher Joseph Liberti told the Times he attempted unsuccessfully to launch the Original Civic Research and Action program in the past, but “launching it became much easier in 2016,” when Americans elected Donald Trump president.

“The energy was there and I was able to ride that wave,” he said.

Officials in other schools like Chicago’s Polaris Charter Academy are also helping students better understand the intersection of government and community, while encouraging them to work together and consider opposing opinions. A student-led campaign at Polaris last year focused on gun violence, and it required students to research the Constitution and Second Amendment, and work with police, lawmakers, activists and gang members, the Times reports.

“This is not just about a high school civics class. – It’s not to prepare students for tests, but to prepare them to be active, contributing citizens,” said Ron Berger, who oversees academics for Polaris’ parent company EL Education. “We’ve forgotten about that as a nation.”

In his book “The Death of Character,” Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture founder James Davison Hunter points to esteemed sociologist Charles Moskos’ perspective on the importance of developing a shared sense of civic virtue.

“… (A)s Charles Moskos put it, ‘because of the relative weakness of other forms of community …., our cohesion depends upon a civic ideal rather than on primordial loyalties.’ In this way, service-learning as a vehicle of civic education can be a means by which communities are drawn together again,” Hunter wrote.

Educators who want to bridge political divides and help students engage in their communities can find a wealth of resources through CIVITAS, a comprehensive K-12 model for civic education developed with the help of dozens of leading scholars and classroom teachers from across the country.

Vermont’s ‘Good Citizen Challenge’ inspires students to engage history, government, community

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Students in Vermont are signing up for a summer of civics – a new program designed to educate students about their shared civic heritage while connecting them with local government and historic sites.

The Good Citizen Challenge is sponsored by Seven Days, a Vermont newsweekly, and the Vermont Community Foundation.

“The self-guided Challenge encourages young Vermonters to explore historic sites, engage in conversations with neighbors and elected officials, develop media literacy skills and learn about the rights and duties of U.S. citizenship,” Seven Days reports.

“Geared toward kids ages 9 to 14, the Challenge is open to all Vermont K-12 students. Activities include visiting the Calvin Coolidge Homestead, attending a city council or selectboard meeting, reading a community newspaper and drawing a cartoon explaining how the three branches of government work.”

Students earn points for each activity with the goal of reaching 251 – the number of towns in the state. Students who meet the threshold and send in their scorecards receive a Good Citizen medal and T-shirt, as well as an invitation to a special reception at the Vermont Statehouse where elected officials from across the political spectrum will recognize the “Good Citizens,” according to the news site.

Seven Days deputy publisher Cathy Resmer said the Good Citizen Challenge is modeled after Vermont State Parks’ 10-year-old Venture Vermont Outdoor Challenge, which is aimed at motivating youngsters to take advantage of the state’s natural resources.

“My family loves Venture Vermont. It gives a little structure to our summer adventures, and inspires us to try new activities,” said Resmer, editor of Seven Days’ free monthly parenting magazine, Kids VT. “We hope the Good Citizen Challenge will do the same thing, but for civics.”

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, and Secretary of State Jim Condos offered support for the program at a press conference announcing its launch in late May. Ethan Sonneborn, a 14-year-old Democrat candidate for governor, also applauded the effort.

Resmer told Seven Days the program is designed to focus on the democratic values that unite at a time of divisive politics. And with recent studies showing a majority of the public struggles with basic civics, it’s more important than ever.

“How can Americans participate in their democracy — or defend it — if they don’t understand the principles on which it rests?” asked Resmer. “As former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said, ‘Civic knowledge can’t be handed down the gene pool. It has to be learned.’”

There is wisdom in this program as it has provided a low-cost means to help structure students’ summer vacation with a civic purpose. But it is more of an onramp toward civic education than an ending point. It is unlikely that these self-directed learnings and experiences will expose students to the most pressing questions of contemporary civic life: How do we live with our deepest differences in society of expanding pluralism or to the ideas that are the pillars of democracy? James Hunter and Ryan Olson warn, “Only the particularity of moral community can bind our natural feelings of empathy with the substance and direction of what we ought to do.” Civic knowledge without a communal basis in “oughtness” will prove inadequate to contemporary life.

Notwithstanding the challenges in engaging students in meaningful civic learning, efforts to generate interest in and enthusiasm for learning about government and our democratic institutions must ensure student engagement .  Teachers interested in fermenting student interest in civics education can find information and ideas by looking at the UK’s The Jubilee Centre.  The Jubilee Centre features teacher lesson plans for teaching students how to prepare for adulthood here.

Kentucky students prepare for civics test graduation requirement that starts next year

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Students in Kentucky must pass a 100 question citizenship test to graduate starting next year, a requirement they’re already preparing for at many schools.

The new graduation requirement spawned from a Senate bill sponsored by Sen. Jared Carpenter approved in 2017 that tasked the Kentucky Department of Education with creating an exam with questions from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services test, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports.

Carpenter told The Richmond Register students must score at least 60 percent, but can take the test as many times as necessary. A passing grade within the last five years meets the graduation requirement.

“A lot of students I spoke with thought we needed a bill like this,” he said. “They thought people needed to be more engaged. They wanted their fellow classmates to have an understanding of our history and how our government works.”

Central Hardin High School students started taking the test this year as sophomores and juniors, and they seemed to have different takes on the test.

“It’s the stuff you learned over the years,” junior Caden Wilson told WDRB. “You should know most of it.”

Skyler Lucas, also a junior, thought it was a little more in-depth.

“Not all of it is common knowledge,” he said. “You have to know more about the government than what you learned.”

WDRB quizzed several adults around Cecilia, Kentucky with questions from the test – such as the number of amendments to the U.S. Constitution or the number of U.S. Senators – and many couldn’t correctly answer. Even folks who allegedly took advanced placement history in high school were baffled.

Professor James Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, reminds us “Individuals are social creatures inextricably embedded in their communities. As such, their identity, their most meaningful relationships, and their morality can only develop from a healthy connection to the social fabric of which they are a part.” Civic education is not only needed for immigrants, but for all citizens. It serves to strengthen our national identity. It is not so much about the facts, but the framing story that is told herein.

Central Hardin teacher Emily Wortham said she understands why lawmakers approved the bill.

“It is important, because if you look at all the things happening in the world today, everything is shaped by things that have happened in the past,” she said.

 

Virginia students influence Government 911 law

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Virginia law now requires local agencies to accept text messages to 911, thanks to a bill crafted by four Centreville High School students as part of their U.S. government class.

There is often a perceived gap between the “ivory tower” of academia and the “real world.” The U.S. government class builds concrete application into students’ study of civics and government. It bridges the gap between classroom and real world application. As such it is enormously empowering to the students. Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture researchers have shown that a thick moral culture is developed best from hands-on experience. “‘Thick’ moral reasoning and discourse is not abstract, but concrete; bounded by the history, tradition, and the practices of lived experience in particular communities.” This program matches these characteristics.

Each year, students in the Northern Virginia school work in pairs to identify problems and craft legislation to solve them. For the past dozen years, Centerville government teachers have select the best proposals and forwarded them to Sen. George L. Barker,  from Alexandria who introduces the legislation on behalf of students, The Washington Post reports.

This year, two groups of students banded together after coming up with the same idea to make 911 accessible by text, and they then lobbied lawmakers to turn their idea into reality. Student Daniel Strauch told the news site he wasn’t very politically involved until he started working on the project.

“It definitely has inspired me and changed how I feel about my government,” he said.

Fellow senior Arko Mazumder said the experience of tracking the legislation through the General Assembly and testifying at committees was eye-opening, and helped to improve his public speaking skills.

“I’m seeing it all unfold in such a spectacular way,” Mazumder said.

Strauch and Mazumder partnered with students Thu Le and Rodolfo Faccini on the 911 texting bill, which Barker told the Post could make a big difference in the lives of people living with hearing impairments.

The bill, which Baker said was simple and affordable, easily cleared both the Senate and House before Gov. Ralph Northam signed the measure into law last month.

The Post reports Centreville students have successfully ushered in other laws over the years, as well, including a requirement for seat belts for children, and increased penalties for texting while driving.

Teachers and principals working to strengthen moral and citizenship formation in their students will find information, strategies and lesson plans at the UK’s The Jubilee Centre.

MA students lobby lawmakers to improve civics education with new graduation requirement

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Massachusetts high schoolers Mike Brodo and Zev Dickstein may not see eye-to-eye on politics, but they both agree on one thing: state lawmakers should pass a bill to promote civics education, including a requirement for a student-led civics project.

“I think that the political environment being highly polarized contributes to this indifference and ignorance of politics you see in the media, and there’s always two sides going at it and no one talking about the state issues, local issues, how do we collaborate and work together face-to-face,” Brodo, a senior at Xaverian Brothers High School and chairman of Massachusetts Teenage Republicans, told South Coast Today “It’s always just divisiveness and tweets, and none of that’s going to get anyone interested.”

Brodo trekked to Beacon Hill, the site of the Massachusetts Legislature in early April to advocate for Senate Bill 2375 alongside Dickstein, vice chairman of the Massachusetts High School Democrats. The legislation, which cleared the Senate in March and is now in the state House, would enhance the state’s civics education curriculum requirements and mandate that students complete a civics project for graduation.

“Civics education will allow student to decide whether they want to get involved in politics and be active,” Dickstein said. “I’m not saying that everyone has to be involved, but everybody needs to know enough about politics so that they can decide if they’d like to get involved.

“This bill will ensure that all students in public school districts will have the support they need to develop civic skills and knowledge necessary to be informed and voting citizens of the commonwealth of Massachusetts and the country.”

The Massachusetts bill is sponsored by Rep. Linda Dean Campbell, who urged students to “do a really hard sell on the projects component of this legislation,” South Coast Today reports.

This effort is consistent with  the findings of sociologist James Davison Hunter at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He reports findings from James Coleman that “calls for the creation of ‘new environments’ in which young people could perform public service and other important civic roles.” The heart of his synthesis “specifies three decisive components of virtuous character: moral knowing, moral feeling, and moral action.” The goal of this program is to correctly incorporate these aspects into the daily education experience of students.

“This is what’s going to make it real,” Rep. Linda Dean Campbell said.  “When we talk to lower-income districts in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, this is what the teachers told us: ‘Make it real. It’s real for us now, we have issues that we’re concerned about now. Allow us to get that experience, hands-on experience, as to how to make politics work for us.”

Teachers and principals working to strengthen moral and citizenship education in their schools will find helpful information and strategies at the UK’s Jubilee Centre. In the Jubilee Centre’s own words, the following paragraph illustrates how the centre views its work:  “The Jubilee Centre is a pioneering interdisciplinary research centre on character, virtues and values in the interest of human flourishing.  The Centre is a leading informant on policy and practice and through its extensive range of projects contributes to a renewal of character virtues in both individuals and societies.”

Of particular note to educators is the Jubilee Centre’s document, “A Framework for Character Education in Schools” which provides an excellent description of virtue definitions and the building blocks of character and provides a list of teaching resources for teacher use.

State lawmakers move to ensure students understand their civic responsibilities

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Lawmakers in multiple states are pushing legislation to ensure students understand how government works and to understand their responsibilities as citizens before they graduate from high school.

Massachusetts lawmakers introduced a bill in mid-March – “An Act to Promote and Enhance Civic Engagement” – that would require all public schools to teach American history and civics, including topics like the election process, Bill of Rights and the functions of local, state and federal government, WWLP reports.

“We’ve had a remarkable outpouring of young people in response to the gun tragedies,” Secretary of State William Galvin told the news site. “I think that converting their anxiety, their concern, their deep passion into actual policy means making sure they understand how the process works and making sure they’re registered to vote.”

Lawmakers, educators, and students alike recognize the urgency of these concerns. For students school shootings are perceived as a life or death issue, for others democratic vitality hangs in the balance. Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture recommend that at times like this it is wise to take a step back and ask “How should we think about the moral formation of children today? What is the path and process by which children are formed as well-integrated individuals who are caring, honest, and trustworthy—healthy human beings living virtuous and meaningful lives as civically minded and committed members of a just community?”

Senate Bill 2355, currently in the Senate Ways and Means Committee, would not require students to pass a civics exam, but would require two student-led civics projects, a requirement that would go into effect for freshman next year.

In Florida, a Constitution Revision Commission is recommending a proposal to inject additional language into Article IX of the state constitution that requires the legislature to educate students about civics.

“As education is essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the legislature shall provide by law for the promotion of civic literacy in order to ensure that students enrolled in public education understand and are prepared to exercise their rights and responsibilities as citizens of a constitutional democracy,” the Florida recommendation reads.

The sponsor of the legislation, former state Senate president Don Gaetz, told the Tampa Bay Times the state already has a law that requires schools to teach civics, and students to pass a test, but the proposal to change the constitution will ensure it stays that way.

“The Legislature changes its mind,” he said. “Especially education issues go in and out of fashion.  The constitution enshrines what we don’t change our minds about.”

The Florida proposal is expected to be on the November ballot. For more discussion on creating a moral ecology in schools see the Institute’s new research study, The Content of Their Character.

For teachers and principals interested in student moral and character formation, information can be found at the UK’s Jubilee Centre website.

 

Montessori students think globally through model UN

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A dozen students from Jacksonville, North Carolina’s Montessori Children’s School recently trekked to New York City to present their research on the world’s problems and negotiate solutions with students representing different countries, an experience that offered lessons in both civics and character.

The 4th- through 6th-grade students served as delegates for Israel, Algeria, and Monaco at the Montessori Model United Nations (MMUN) New York Conference in late February, when they convened with students from across the globe to discuss issues like poverty, sustainable development, international security, and others, The Daily News reports.

Preparation began months before, with students researching the culture and pressing issues of their assigned countries, and crafting presentations and solutions for negotiation at the MMUN.

Student delegates followed the UN structure and procedures to navigate committees, where they worked to draft resolutions that they later voted on during a mock General Assembly at the actual UN in New York.

“Karalyn Marsh and Caleb Conklin, . . . fifth graders representing Israel, have found world issues are also complex ones,” The Daily News reports. “Karalyn’s research on the rights of indigenous people has included the topic of the Israel-Palestine conflict while Caleb is ready to discuss the Chemical Weapons Convention.”

The Montessori Children’s School representatives for Algeria focused on the country’s issues with military spending, poverty, and health care.

“They are spending a lot of money on the military and people are suffering and don’t have health care, food and basic essentials,” 4th-grader Grace Mayer told The Daily News.

The school’s MMUN coordinator, April Kennedy, described the conference and preparation as a global education with a real-life experience—one that’s been “eye opening” for many students studying problems like poverty and war.

“Preparing for the conference they’ve had to put themselves in others’ shoes and it has helped to broaden their perspective,” she said.

The MMUN is part of a tradition of cultivating global citizenship that is fraught with complexity.

Jeffrey Dill, a scholar at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture wrote in The Longings and Limits of Global Citizenship:

Schooling is the context in which society tells stories about itself . . . Education has the goal of creating a certain kind of person—a character in a story—with the values, characteristics, and skills a particular society holds as ideals.

Montessori education in general, and the MMUN in particular, tell an important and specific story.

Montessori education is based on assumptions about the nature of persons, and how they learn. And the MMUN places students as characters in a global story in which they need both skills and virtues to understand a problem, take another perspective, and work constructively with others. The Montessori community is a particular society, with unique practices that sustain a vision of their ideals of civic engagement.

The MMUN has a thoughtful preparation process that ensures the model UN experience is more than a fun field trip. The process sets a strong foundation with classroom lessons and after-school programs many months before the students arrive at the UN.

We the People competition teaches history, government … and life

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More than a dozen students at Carolina Forest High school recently received an in-depth, real-world education in history and the U.S. Constitution, an experience several said taught them a lot about themselves, as well.

In February, 14 students in JJ Iagulli’s advanced placement government class took second place in the statewide “We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution” competition—a mock congressional hearing in which students are expected to defend their answers with American history and constitutional law.

Ilagulli explained the process to My Horry News:

Students get questions and they write a prepared response of no more than four minutes to each of them. The panel of students is sitting before the judges, and after the four minutes, there is a six-minute follow-up segment where the students cannot use notes or prompts, and the judges ask any follow-up questions they want to.

Ilaguilli said that unlike a real congressional hearing, where one person is on the spot, the student competition encourages a full panel of students to chime in.

“There are points for participation, so even if the judge directs a question to a particular student, it is the responsibility of the group to add information or even disagree with the student that was called on,” he said.

Student Kareem Barbis told the news site that the dynamic of working on a team with students from different backgrounds was a new experience.

“Usually I get to choose my group and my partners, but the teacher assigned that, and it was interesting working with people different from me, people with different personalities,” she said.

Sandra Ataalla, Barbis’ classmate, contends the competition boosted her confidence.

“I had a better voice at the end of the competition,” she said. “I can take an opinion and back it up with evidence now. I used to be shy, but I’m more outspoken now.”

Cassidy Callaghan, another student, said the competition improved her research and communication skills.

“This is going to help me with job interviews, because now I can communicate with someone better and answer questions better,” she said. “We had no idea what they would ask, or what they would think about our speeches.”

Carolina Forest High School ultimately aced three out of six units at the competition, coming in second to Lexington’s River Bluff High School. River Bluff will now represent South Carolina in the national finals in Washington, D.C., in April.

“These kids can research, they understand the issue at hand, they can analyze it and synthesize and create a solution that often recognizes not just the complexity of the issue, but even the legal and constitutional requirements, even the founders’ intentions,” Iagulli said.

“They learn to create an argument they can back up with facts, and those things are beneficial no matter what field the students go into,” he said.

The Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia recently examined the role schools play in forming character in students, and effective ways a wide variety of schools influence civic responsibility and other values.

The School Cultures and Student Formation Project, summarized in The Content of Their Character, centers on the question:

What is the path and process by which children are formed as well-integrated individuals who are caring, honest, and trustworthy—healthy human beings living virtuous and meaningful lives as civically minded and committed members of a just community?

“The moral and missional ethos of a school was reinforced through a range of practices or routinized actions—some formal, some informal—all oriented toward giving expression to the school’s beliefs and values,” editors James Davison Hunter and Ryan S. Olson wrote.

The time, energy, and curricular alignment at Carolina Forest High School all communicate to students the importance of understanding the Constitution, being able to construct a valid argument, and working well with others. These all shape the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of good citizens.

The We the People competition is run by the Center for Civic Education, which offers lesson plans and other resources for educators.

The 31st Annual We the People National Finals—featuring more than 1,200 high school students from 56 classes across the nation—will take place at the National Conference Center over April 27-May 1, 2018.

©2017 Advanced Studies in Culture

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