Enriching Civics Education Through Local Partnerships
It is widely established that there is a great need for civics education, says Prep history teacher Kathy Quinter. “Remember those segments of The Tonight Show when they asked random passersby basic questions and they couldn’t answer it,” she asks. “Well, it hasn’t gotten any better.”
That is why The Prep has partnered with Founding Forward, one of the largest civics educational programs in the nation to help ensure that Prep students have the knowledge needed to be citizens of the world.
“It stems from the idea of the informed citizen,” says Founding Forward’s Jason Raia, the group’s Chief Learning Officer. “Our system of government depends on all of us being informed and engaged. We want students to understand they have to pay attention to current events, they must understand how decisions are made.”
The organization, which came from a recent merger between the Union League Legacy Foundation in Philadelphia and the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, provides civic education programs for schools from across the country. The Prep is one of the early partners with Founding Forward.
"We want students to understand they have to pay attention to current events, they must understand how decisions are made.”
“They sponsor some incredible conversations and talks on a variety of topics,” says Quinter. “Thanks to the generosity of the SJP Affinity Group at the Union League, Prep seniors have been able to hear from speakers on topics such as public affairs, history, finance, and politics. We are really lucky to have access to these incredible opportunities.”
Quinter remembered fondly a discussion between Jeffrey Rosen, President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and Robert George, an American legal scholar. “They come from different ideologies politically but are friends and were able to have a civil discourse,” she says. “They delivered their points of view while laughing and having a good conversation. It was a great way to model that for our students.”
“We pride ourselves on being non-partisan,” says Raia. “For us it is very much about starting with the founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. What do they say, how did they come to life? Then we try to understand what the Founders had in mind.”
Raia readily admits that the Nation’s founders, while “a genius generation no doubt, they also disagreed passionately. Disagreement has been there since the beginning but you need to find the core values. We think that is liberty, the idea of individuals having freedom, the unalienable rights that we talk about. Then you can disagree on how to apply that. And that’s ok. This is a unique nation, a unique experiment. Sometimes we have gotten things wrong but we have also gotten many things right.”
"We are not training activists or politicians, but we are training citizens who will be parents, who will be scientists, teachers, etc."
This year, at Quinter’s request, Founding Forward presented sessions on the First Amendment at The Prep: sophomores in the fall and juniors in the spring. The scenarios involved hate speech on college campuses and restricting a high school student’s speech off campus. After presentations on the topic, the students were separated into small groups and given a side to debate, with an adult facilitator.
“We used Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., about a cheerleader who was punished for online comments she made after not making her high school team and presented the case up to the decision of the court,” says Raia. “We moved half the students to one side of the case and the others on the other side and told them that it doesn’t matter what you feel, it matters what you think. If you think she should have been punished, then think about why someone might disagree with you and vice versa. We want to model that, help them experience that.”
“I don’t know how often students are having these conversations,” Quinter says. “Students’ lives are so busy now that there might be less time for them to have these conversations now so I am glad that they seemed to really value the opportunity to have these conversations and work together, led by the adults at their table.”
Raia points out that this is not necessarily about producing future public servants. “We are not training activists or politicians, but we are training citizens who will be parents, who will be scientists, teachers, etc.,” he says. “They are citizens and have a role to play in the American system of government.”
For more information on Founding Forward and its programming, click here.
