Welcome to The Civics Initiative Summer Institute

In the opening discussion between teacher-scholars on the first day of our first ever Summer Institute, the themes from the conversation foreshadowed the impressive collaborations that would be one of the major highlights of the workshop. Before the team could even get to the meat of our lesson plans, our cohorts were evaluating the realities behind education and how it is a political act in itself. With this in mind, the conversation led to contemplations of how educators can strive for an equitable teaching space that motivates students to not only retain the information they are being provided with, but how they can use the information as tools to evolve themselves and the environment around them. The civic institute team was impressed with these initial conversations as it proved furthermore how educators from different backgrounds and concentrations can come together to build our understanding of civics outside of the standardized lens and in a way that reflects our emphasis on building/maintaining community. 

A brief overview of the workshop captures key themes such as the danger of a single story, setting up effective learning environments, empathetic listening, understanding lived civics and the social contract, monitoring contentious debates, and much more. The civics team knew the significance of incorporating more than just a workshop on civics content. The curriculum itself placed importance of avoiding simply regurgitating constitutional history and aims at providing students skills to evaluate their beliefs and understanding of society’s functioning in order to be more proactive citizens. Not only does this course promote being active with one’s duties as a citizen, it also helps students understand the impact of their own experiences with civics/politics and why they might look different or similar to their peers’ experiences. To prep the cohorts to make this possible for our students, the Summer Institute was organized to include many activities to ensure success.

A notable activity was an empathetic listening exercise led by Dr. Conklin that pushed the teacher-scholars to listen more intentionally in order to retell a story with full integrity. Being tasked to retell your assigned partner’s story is much easier said than done, especially when conveying the emotion behind it. Our team found that the exercise motivated the cohorts to listen with more intention, sympathy, attention to detail, as well as pushed them to ask more thoughtful questions in order to better remember the shared story. The feedback showed how our scholars were better able to consider the intrinsic experience rather than solely trying to find a personal connection to the story. Many of our participants were eager to take this activity into the classroom and try on students to promote empathetic listening. Links to resources for the various activities completed at the Summer Institute will be linked below!