Democracy Schools Network

Monthly Update

April,2022

Spring has arrived...well, kind of; not the storybook kind of spring--the Chicago kind of spring. Hope that you find some moments to enjoy it.

We are starting to wind down the 2021-22 school year: both our new applicant schools and our renewal schools are wrapping up their yearlong process, we celebrated several of our DSN school successes in a webinar on April 14, and our Civic Learning Across Disciplines (CLAD) series has concluded. (But you can still view recordings of all of them here.) We are eagerly looking towards the 2022-23 school year--especially by planning our Annual Convening in September, "Civic Learning and Media Literacy Across Disciplines". (More details below.)

PRACTICING CIVIC LEARNING ACROSS DISCIPLINES

Resources to assist our members in implementing best practices in civics:

• Doing Democracy Day: A Colorado school brings students and community leaders together to consider local problems.
• National Geographic Society Citizen Science Projects: Around the world ordinary people of all ages engage in citizen science—participating in projects in which volunteers and scientists work together to answer real-world questions. Here are some of their projects.
• Urban Agriculture Education programs can be an important aspect of youth civic engagement. Read more here.

Enhance your classroom practice with these 5-week asynchronous, microcredential courses hosted on Canvas. Explore strategies and resources to create a classroom climate in which there are equitable opportunities for ALL students to engage in the proven practices of civic education delineated in the middle and high school course requirements: current and controversial issue discussions, simulations of democratic processes and informed action through service learning. Learn from academic experts like Dr. Diana Hess, Dr. Paula McAvoy, Dr. Joe Kahne, Dr. Jane Lo, Dr. Walter Parker and more! Collaborate with fellow participants to support brave, civil and reflective civic engagement. More details and form to sign up here.

Cohorts will begin May 23, 2022 and end June 30, 2022. DSN members who successfully earn their microcredential will earn a $300 stipend. Space is limited. Spots will be allocated to represent the diverse regions and disciplinary contents in the DSN.

Jim Plaza, Sociology and World History teacher, Grayslake Central (2014)

Through our work with the Loyola Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) cohort, we learned about a variety of strategies to use in our classrooms and were encouraged to try them out with our students. One of the strategies that I have found to be useful and meaningful to students is the Identity Wheel, which asks students to consider various identities that they carry, including race, gender, social class, religion, physical abilities/disabilities, and more. They then reflect on identities that they think about most often, those that bring them joy, those that have the strongest effect on how they see themselves, and those that they usually do not put much thought into. In my Sociology classes, I incorporate the Identity Wheel into a beginning-of-the-semester survey that includes other “getting to know you” questions. Then, I schedule one-on-one meetings with each student and use their surveys as conversation starters and points of discussion. Through the surveys and interviews, I am able to get to know my students as people and understand how they see themselves so that I can plan meaningful and culturally appropriate classroom experiences for them. Students have said that they find it interesting and thought-provoking to think more about who they are in deeper ways.

To build on the Identity Wheel later in the semester, we discuss the impacts of socialization on the creation of identity, culminating in students writing an “I Am” poem, which is another strategy we learned in the Loyola CRP cohort. In this activity, students reflect on their identities, adding in other aspects, such as hobbies, interests, family structures, “homelands,” and more, thinking about how all of their life experiences and agents of socialization have contributed to the development of who they are. Several students have mentioned that this is a rather emotional experience for them, especially after reading their finished poems from beginning to end. I have found that this activity has created a stronger classroom community because when students read each other’s poems (with their permission), they realize that they have connections to each other that go beyond the things they see in each other every day. It also creates a culture of risk-taking and openness that becomes important when we have difficult discussions about controversial topics. When students see each other as people and respect each other’s stories, these conversations become respectful, constructive, and more meaningful

Valerie Xanos, Art Teacher, Curie High School (2016)

The Guerrilla Art Collective is comprised of the teacher (a practicing artist), students and alumni from the advanced ARTivism (II-H & III-H) courses at Curie H.S. In addition, the collective membership includes local artists, activists, and teachers who partner with the students on various levels. This partnership has been fostered for the past 6 years through the SPACE program (School Partnership for Art and Civic Education) of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and has included an embedded resident artist from 2017 - 2022. The 2017 GAC class was the pilot for this powerful program that now functions in several schools in Chicago. GAC students work with the teacher as collaborating artists and have input as to the curriculum and projects planned for each year. Our guiding concepts are: social justice, student voice, collectivity, interdisciplinary artistic process, contemporaneity, and community engagement. 

The 2022 GAC is developing 4 collaborative installation artworks as part of our final exhibition. Each will focus on a different social justice issue and includes interactive and community engaged components. Read more about the exhibit here.

Chris Wilbur, Social Studies Teacher, Hinsdale Central (2017)

I have handed this out to students before discussions and telling them that they have to use 2-3 of the sentence starters in the discussion. You can also assign categories to different students and make them practice a certain type of discussion skill. 

Jen Conlon, Social Studies Teacher, Maine East (2013)

Rethinking civics from an engagement perspective instead of from a 'teaching government' perspective emphasized the dynamism of the process. Simply stated, the focus is on building efficacy. Thinking through that lens continues to shape my teaching. Now when I begin my civics class I ask students on day one to tell me about themselves including issues that are concerning to them. I form a set of groups that I will use off and on during the semester based on those identified common interests. In an early meeting, I ask students to identify five questions they have about their topics and they put those in a class flipgrid. After we do our next unit on news literacy, I ask them to research, on their own, two of those questions and to save the research they collect. While we study Congress, I ask them to use congress.gov to locate a bill addressing their topic. By time we get around to writing a letter to a public official, their letters can be based on an issue significant to them, using their research, and speaking to particular committees and bills. The letters my students create are terrific and much more meaningful to them. There may be something in the executive branch and bureaucracy that is relevant as well, and by time we get to the Illinois General Assembly and they are using ilga.gov, they can again look for relevant legislation, and they learn to file a witness slip as well. It was the change to a civic engagement perspective that made me rethink my teaching and, while some of the basic topics and exercises are similar, students' efforts are now much more meaningful.