civics

Sophomores at Delaware school lead student walk-out

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Students around the nation at public and non-public schools are taking action in the wake of the Parkland shooting in Florida. In Delaware, students of Wilmington Friends Upper School stood for 17 minutes in silence in honor of the 17 killed and to protest gun violence.

Students Abby VandenBruhl and Casey Tyler told WDEL that they wanted to overcome a sense of powerlessness. VandenBruhl said, “I felt that we were far away,” but concluded, “I have to do this, I have to be part of this because I can’t sit around and watch this happen and know that it could be a school around here next . . .”

“This was a student-initiated statement, an act of civic engagement with a current issue,” said Rebecca Zug, Head of the Upper School. “We are proud that our students learn to let their lives speak on issues that matter to them, whether or not they chose to participate in this act of silent protest. There is no easy or single answer. We encourage engagement, discourse and empathy to solve societal challenges.”

Both Tyler and VandenBruhl hope the walkout will inspire change.

“I think we just need to do something. I feel like we haven’t done anything,” said VandenBruhl. “I think we just need to start trying things and I think we have to start debating and trying things before another tragedy happens.”

Friends schools like this one in Wilmington belong to a Quaker tradition that emphasizes peaceful conflict resolution. Anchored in that tradition, they take a unique approach to forming students for the kind of civic engagement that VandenBruhl and Tyler led.

As part of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture‘s School Cultures and Student Formation Project, Notre Dame sociologist David Sikkink studied “alternative pedagogy” schools like Wilmington Friends in order to understand how these unique schools build character and citizenship in their students. Sikkink writes in The Content of Their Character, “These were not rudderless institutions; each had a fairly explicit understanding of student formation goals, which to a large extent were an outgrowth of an alternative vision of the educational task.”

It should not be surprising, then, that these students at a private school stand in solidarity with students at a public high school in Florida. The unique beliefs and practices of the Quaker school cultivates this sort of active citizenship and solidarity.

For teachers in any kind of school, the responsibility of forming responsible citizens is great. The Center for Civic Education offers this foundational lesson for middle school students on how citizens can participate in the United States.

Students redistrict PA in ways some officials deem ‘too fair’

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A recent math lesson in Jon Kimmel’s Westtown School classroom is engaging students in civics, while also opening their eyes to the reality of politics.

“I saw our government is really, really corrupt,” Pennsylvania 8th-grader Siddhartha Sangwan told WHYY. “It’s not equal at all.”

Students were grouping shapes across a grid in Kimmel’s first period class recently when one student remarked that the exercise seemed “a lot like gerrymandering.” The off-hand comment—especially relevant as Pennsylvania lawmakers squabble over the state’s contentious congressional map—gave Kimmel an idea, and he soon challenged students to redraw the district boundaries using census data, basic math ratios, and percentages.

Initially, students assumed the project would be a difficult task, but they quickly realized “it’s not that difficult,” student Isaac Lind told the news site. “I mean, it didn’t take long for us to complete these maps,” he said.

In 10 class periods, students produced several new congressional maps with a variety of objectives.

“Some maps focused on creating an even split between the two parties or ensuring representation for racial minorities. Others aimed for geographic compactness, as measured by a class-created formula that compares a district’s area with its perimeter and then contrasts it with the shape of a square,” WHYY reports. “One especially interesting arrangement included large ‘multi-representative’ districts where an area would be assigned two or three congressional votes. The margin of victory in those area would determine the party of the representatives.”

Students at the Quaker school also crafted a map using random rolls of a die to draw district boundaries.

“The one that was generated randomly was way better” than the current map, student Daniel Seller-Johnston said. “That should say something about the current map.”

The multi-dimensional civics lesson not only exposed students to the current state of politics, but also illustrated they have the capacity to challenge, inform, and shape current policy. Ironically, feedback from policymakers has offered other lessons.

“They’ve sent their maps to some public officials and received positive feedback,” WHYY reports, “though apparently one political staffer in Harrisburg looked at their output and deemed it ‘too fair.’”

The Westtown lesson is one example of how schools play a critical role in forming engaged citizens.

James Davison Hunter and Ryan S. Olson, with the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, summarize research into character education in a variety of schools in The Content of Their Character:

[C]haracter is constituted by the enactments of moral ideals espoused within a tradition and enacted within the institutions of particular communities.

Westtown students are taking up non-partisan ideals of equity in the context of a living tradition—the Quaker values of “peace and justice in the community and in the world.” Students are learning citizenship through practice, and it’s developing active citizens the country desperately needs.

Educators interested in engaging students in civics can look to online resources like iCivics, which offers a wide range of possibilities.

Model UN requires students to take other perspectives

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Young female students at Buffalo’s Nardin Academy recently trekked to Chicago to represent Brazil in a Model United Nations conference hosted by University of Chicago students, an exercise in civics that required students to immerse themselves in new cultures and ideas.

Nardin Academy sophomore Sarah Crawford penned a column for The Buffalo News about her time in Chicago with 20 classmates from the upstate New York all-girls school, and the experience of interacting with about 3,000 other teens from across the world, including China, Italy, and elsewhere.

Students from each school represented a country, and delegations spent hours researching and preparing for committee debates on important issues like drug trafficking, nuclear proliferation, and pollution.

Through a process similar to the United Nations, students navigated committee rules and procedures, and crafted resolutions to address world problems.

“Delegates can support a resolution in many ways,” Crawford wrote. “Some choose to offer financial aid to help rectify a problem, while others send military or humanitarian forces. Either way, a resolution is composed of more than just one person’s ideas; the views of many different delegates go into one resolution.”

Committees ranged in size from fewer than 20 countries to more than 100, and resolutions required a majority vote for approval. After 20 hours of committee debate over four blustery days in Chicago, “many resolutions were passed and countless friendships were created,” Crawford wrote. “Although the academic work that went into this conference, and the academic achievements that came out of it, are incredibly important for these teenagers, perhaps more important is the new understanding of different cultures, views, and opinions of delegates from around the world.”

The process of understanding others and negotiating agreement across differences is what James Davison Hunter and Ryan S. Olson describe as “practices” in The Content of Their Character, a summary of research into culture formation in American high schools.

Editors Hunter and Olson, with the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, note that researchers observed:

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 tangible expressions to the school’s values and beliefs.

Civic education at Nardin Academy goes beyond classroom lessons about the rules of government to involve students in the practices of offering a perspective, careful research, thoughtful articulation of an argument, and real willingness to understand and negotiate with others in a rules-based order.

As with any civic practice, doing it well takes work. The United Nations Association of the USA has compiled a resource guide to help interested schools understand what the program involves and how to make the most of the opportunity for students.

Students become better citizens through ‘We the People’ competition

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Easthampton High School students won a statewide “We the People” competition at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in Boston, and are now headed to a national competition. The students believe the deep dive into constitutional government has made them better citizens.

The 21 students who competed for Easthampton are now hoping to raise enough money to travel to Washington, D.C., at the end of April, reports Mass Live. They are led by teacher Kelly Brown who was ecstatic about her team’s performance: “These young people are so incredibly knowledgeable about government and the Constitution . . . It makes me hopeful for the future.”

The “We The People” competition is organized by the Center for Civic Education, an independent nonprofit that provides resources and curriculum for elementary and secondary schools.

The Boston competition “tested knowledge and understanding of the history, evolution, and philosophy of constitutional government” including Federalism, the Bill of Rights, English common law, the Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation.

For those who haven’t recently brushed up on their constitutional history, the questions might seem quite challenging: “What was Aristotle’s thinking about different forms of government? Which did he prefer, and how might his ideas have influenced the Framers of the Constitution?”

But Easthampton students are confident both in their own ability and Brown’s leadership. Many of them were enrolled in Brown’s AP U.S. History course prior to joining the competition. Student Chantel Duda said, “We knew that the class was going to be hard . . . But Ms. Brown is an incredible teacher.”

Students are also fascinated by connections they perceive between contemporary issues and the historical questions they are considering. In particular, they are reflecting on the 18th-century debates that pitted federalists against anti-federalists. The core questions of that debate, which revolved around balancing states’ rights against the need for a strong federal government, still play out daily in our halls of Congress.

Student Carly Detmers noted that her study of 1st Amendment cases that played out in the Supreme Court has given her valuable context to analyze the current free-speech cases that are roiling college campuses.

However, the competition doesn’t only provide opportunities for grunt work done in the depths of the library. Brown points out that it also shines a spotlight on hard-working students who are given an opportunity to demonstrate and be celebrated for their knowledge.

“We the People” has the promise of dramatically improving students’ knowledge and their civic dispositions. In The Content of Their Character, a recent publication from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, James Davison Hunter and Ryan S. Olson emphasize the importance of the formative dynamics of communities like Easthampton High. “In civic education, recent scholarship has found that ‘it is the norms within the adolescent’s community, defined in this case as the high school, that matter.’ They matter because ‘norms are inculcated within collectivities, such as the family, the neighborhood, and the school.'”

The students’ civics class brought many of those spheres together—local lawyers, a student teacher, and state representatives all worked with the students to guide their study and preparation.

The Easthampton students’ careful study of history and law prepared them not only for this competition but for wise and informed citizenship. “We’ve been given an incredible foundation,” said student Carlie Raucher. “I’ll be a better citizen for having taken this class.”

We the People offers considerable resources to high school teachers who want to build deep civic knowledge in their students, including curriculum guides, lesson plans, and professional development.

Alabama 5th-graders honor their heroes in a public ceremony

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Fifth-graders at Alabama’s Thompson Intermediate School are becoming Super Citizens by emulating local heroes who are making a difference in their community.

For 10 weeks, students participated in the Super Citizen program run by Liberty’s Legacy that focuses on promoting civics and character education, financial responsibility, and career readiness, an experience that culminated with an assembly in early November to honor heroes impacting their lives, according to the Shelby County Reporter.

“It’s important that we start to instill those values in them now, to take pride in themselves and in their communities, because they are the future. They will be the difference in this country,” said Liberty’s Legacy spokeswoman Kelli Dodd. “They focus on how our government works, how to make a budget, the history of the Statue of Liberty and what that means, as well.”

Students took turns at the recent ceremony explaining how adults in their lives have made a positive impact, and presented them with a miniature Statue of Liberty to give thanks.

Those honored included parents and grandparents, siblings, teachers, school staff, and others.

“There are so many walks of life that are being represented today,” said TIS Principal Brent Byars at the Nov. 3 event.

One student presented a statue to local meteorologist James Spann.

“Whenever there’s bad weather, he stays up all night to keep us aware of the weather,” the student said, according to the Reporter.

Dodd said the ceremony to honor real-life heroes is key to connecting the lessons from the Super Citizens program to everyday life.

“What’s really beautiful is that they’re taking all these lessons that can be kind of abstract and global and they personalize it and make them very tangible for them,” she said.

We can’t live without heroes.

The flesh-and-blood kind in our community inspire us in unique ways. In their actions, we see how to be kind, just, patient, and courageous. And as we admire them, we imitate them—slowly learning how our heroes’ character was forged by virtuous habits.

Community heroes have an influence on children that heroes on the silver screen may not—because we know them as real people, not the digitally-retouched version of reality.

Sociologist James Davison Hunter from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia explains the importance of character in his book The Death of Character:

History and philosophy both suggest to us that the flourishing of character rooted in elevated virtues is essential to justice in human affairs; its absence, a measure of corruption and a portent of social and political collapse, especially in a democracy. The importance of character is a part of the moral imagination we Americans have inherited, a sensibility reinforced by the lessons of history.

“The Super Citizen Program makes learning history, civics, character, financial literacy and career readiness exciting. Our immersive learning experiences teach students to become responsible, outstanding citizens,” according to the group’s website.

“Just imagine a generation of students who excel in teach-to-test subjects but have little knowledge of civics, character, financial responsibility and career readiness. Will math and science alone continue our nation’s progress? Our students deserve to learn these guiding lessons—as well as the great American Story that gives context to their important roles in our country’s future. We must teach them that they hold titles more important than ‘engineer,’ ‘scientist’ even . . . ‘president’ . . . That title is citizen.”

Virginia cuts history tests, potentially leading to disastrous results

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The Washington Post’s education columnist, Jay Mathews, is calling out Virginia education officials for doing away with standardized tests on U.S. history, a subject many believe is critical to instilling a sense of citizenship among students.

Mathews explained that Virginia’s Standards of Learning once required exams in U.S. History to 1865 in 5th grade, U.S. History 1865 to Present for middle schoolers, and a high school exam on U.S. and Virginia History.

But the tests were difficult for some students, and the state has eliminated all but the latter in recent decades. Now, the state is expected to kill off the high school history exam, as well, while keeping similar tests for English and math, he wrote.

“Many students scored poorly. At one point, the state school board tried to solve the problem by lowering the passing score, but that didn’t help. In 2014, the Virginia legislature ordered a cut in the number of tests taken by the state’s children, and specifically eliminated the fifth grade and middle school U.S. history tests,” Mathews wrote.

“The U.S. and Virginia history exam in high school is also about to disappear. The history courses remain without the required tests,” he continued. “I predict this will happen in other states, too. Politicians seem to think the best way to reduce testing pressure is to dump tests, no matter how important.”

The shift of focus away from the country’s history follows a trend across the country that’s not only led to embarrassingly uninformed youth, but also the erosion of a shared sense of citizenship and civic engagement that was once a bedrock of American education.

It’s a serious issue that could be leading to other problems discussed in “The Vanishing Center of American Democracy,” a 2016 survey of American political culture conducted by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.

“The ‘vital center’ of a hopeful and substantive liberal democracy . . . has all but disappeared, having been depleted through deliberate strategies of oppositional research, disparagement, and political theater that have become the stock and trade of consultants, special interest groups, and political parties,” according to the report.

“It does not go too far to say that a discourse of negation—and the fear, animosity, distrust, and lack of comprehension that it fosters—is the common culture of early twenty-first century American democracy. It hasn’t helped that the mediating institutions directly or indirectly charged with political formation—schools, youth organizations, churches and other institutions of faith, and local political parties—have weakened over the past half century,” it continues.

“For many reasons not of their own making, these institutions have failed to cultivate the shared civic sensibility at the heart of citizenship.”

And the result has not been good.

“In the process, the shared civic dispositions that underwrote and therefore limited political disagreement have not been replenished. Neither has the civility, civic realism, and idealism that accompanies vital democratic practice,” according to the report. “To be sure, the internet and social media have filled the gap, offering a certain kind of political community, along with a voice for many who were voiceless, but it is a weaker form of community, divided into enclaves and built on anonymous ties, with little more than virtual solidarity.”

©2017 Advanced Studies in Culture

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