Author: icivics

My middle school students understand that I have high expectations and that I’ll show up consistently and authentically—whether we’re working together in class or running into each other at church. And even though they yearn for independence, I know they also crave that relationship. It’s a priority for me too. Trust is key to ensuring my classroom is a place where they can feel safe honing their ideas and trying out new ones. That’s what civics—and the Civic Star Challenge—is all about, especially as we near the country’s 250th birthday.

This is a moment to consider the ways we’re living up to the ideals in the Declaration of Independence and our other founding documents. That’s what two great American writers were doing in 1852. It’s the year Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Frederick Douglass delivered his speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” These were two people with starkly different backgrounds, but who shared a faith in their nation’s potential.

Drawing on a lesson from the Four Question Method, my 8th grade US history class analyzed key passages from each text.

Students were especially struck by what pushed Stowe to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin. After losing her young son to cholera, she reflected on the grief enslaved mothers experienced when their children were taken from them.

We discussed Stowe’s admission that she had once avoided thinking deeply about slavery because it felt too painful to confront. By the end of the novel, she directly challenges readers to act against the Fugitive Slave Act, appealing to them as parents and Christians.

It’s as if she’s looking her readers directly in the eye.

That was what Douglass was doing as he delivered his landmark speech to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. He is blistering in his critique of the July 4th holiday, calling it “a sham,” its “shouts of liberty and equality” nothing but “hollow mockery.” But what surprised students most was how the speech ended.

“I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. No abuse, no outrage … can now hide itself from the all-pervading light.”

My students immediately recognized that Douglass was opening himself up to great personal risk by speaking out, and they marveled at his decision to use his public platform in this way. We also discussed how Douglass was able to criticize his country, while loving it ardently. This ability to consider two competing truths simultaneously—with rigor and respect—is one of the most valuable lessons civics can offer us.

Ultimately, my goal is to help my students notice that both Stowe and Douglas are profoundly hopeful. They refused to turn away from the darkness of their time and in facing it, helped push our country forward. To me, hope is a theme that is woven throughout our nation’s story. Even – or perhaps especially—when it is difficult to see, these great American voices remind us and future generations it’s worth declaring.

In my classes, I strive to create an interconnected narrative, each topic building upon the next. 

We start by analyzing the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble. The language and ideas in these documents become the golden thread that pulls us through the school year – and through America’s story.

I ask my students to be part of that story.

The Civic Star Challenge inspired me to develop a lesson in which students apply the concepts in the Declaration to the push/pull factors around immigration – specifically, the experience of immigrants on Angel Island. Unlike Ellis Island, Angel Island was often used to restrict immigration, especially from Asia, and to enforce laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act. Many people who arrived there faced long detentions, harsh questioning, discrimination, and dehumanizing treatment. I wanted students to consider: if they were pulled to this country for a better life, what would they feel if their first encounter with America was such blatant mistreatment? 

We stepped into that experience through a virtual field trip to the Angel Island Immigration Station (which we accessed through the California State Parks’ PORTS program). Our ranger guide brilliantly led us through the museum, really listening to the students along the way. We saw the rooms where immigrants slept and spotted Chinese poetry carved into the walls – a small act of resistance. 

Every single class period, students asked “why would the immigrants still choose to come?” They were learning that the promise of American ideals were strong enough for immigrants to take incredible risks. At the same time, they were able to reflect upon the historical forces that would degrade these ideals and imagine how it would feel to be caught up in their negation. After the visit, some students wrote about the shock immigrants must have felt when, at the end of the long journey in search of a better life, they were met with invasive interrogations, onerous paperwork, and very little privacy. One student drew the image of money locked behind a barbed-wire gate, to show how immigrants discovered that the dream of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” wasn’t free.

This is a complicated concept for students in middle school, but I was thrilled to watch them considering it with nuance and depth. They recognized that while the discrimination immigrants faced challenged the idealism they might have had when they arrived, it may have also made them even more determined to succeed here. Many of my students have immigration stories in their own families, so this lesson felt especially personal. But even for students without that direct connection, Angel Island helped them see a larger civic truth: American ideals matter most when we ask who has been allowed to claim them, and who has had to fight for them.

Teaching civics at a career technical school is sometimes an exercise in translation. Wayne County Schools Career Center hosts 26 programs for high school juniors and seniors; from animal science to culinary arts to sports medicine, it really runs the gamut. My students are sometimes skeptical that knowing about government will help them excel in their trades. I like to say, “You may not need the Pythagorean theorem every day, but you do need to know your constitutional rights! You need to know what the law is!” And it’s my mission to show them why.

I do that by bringing the trades into my lessons. With criminal justice students, we connect the Bill of Rights to the work they hope to do. With nursing students, we talk about Medicare, Medicaid, and the policies that shape patient care. With students in service fields, we talk about the rules, rights, and responsibilities that affect the people they will serve. And we talk about how WCSCC, itself, resembles our country in its earliest years: here, students from a dozen other schools come together in pursuit of a common goal.

One way I build that bridge is by helping students see civics in the places they already know.

Sometimes it’s helpful to see the connections on paper—specifically, on maps of our region. As part of the Civic Star Challenge, I built a series of classes based on the Northwest Ordinance and Ohio’s path to statehood. Students aren’t used to using physical maps these days – they look on their phones for directions. So it was a bit of a novelty when we broke out maps of Wayne County and I asked them to start plotting coordinates. They were struck by the tidy grid of our 16 townships, each 6 by 6 miles. That framework is lasting evidence of the Land Ordinance of 1785. 

I pointed out that Section 16 of each of these townships was reserved for public education. Why? Because the founders understood that if people are going to live in a republic of self-government, it would be vitally important that they have access to education. And so, we can connect the Northwest Ordinance to the free public education enshrined in the Ohio Constitution.

I also explained that the way each township is zoned determines whether you live next to a farm, a store, a factory, or a new housing development. And of course, each township has a trustee. When my students turn 18, they will not just vote for president. They will vote for local leaders who make decisions that shape the roads, land, services, and neighborhoods around them.

I see it as a calling to produce educated citizens. Although I couldn’t serve in the military like my siblings, teaching is a way I can fulfill my patriotic duty and keep our nation thriving for generations. If I can make the US Constitution feel tangible and alive to my students, they’ll be more likely to defend and preserve it. From time to time, I’ll get a letter or a message from a former student who is serving overseas and I’m reminded that civic education is not abstract. They understand that the Constitution is not just something we study. It is something people serve, protect, and carry with them. That makes me incredibly proud. That is what I want for all of my students, whether they become nurses, mechanics, chefs, public servants, business owners, or members of the military. I want them to see that civics is not separate from their lives. It is part of the communities they will work in, vote in, serve in, and help shape.

My students love learning and they excel academically. And recently, I discovered that they also have a flair for the dramatic.

It was the beginning of the school year. As part of the Civic Star Challenge, I adapted a unit created by my mentor Jeannie Holloway. The goal was to help students see that the Constitution did not appear out of nowhere. It grew out of real arguments about power, rights, government, and human nature. I kicked things off with a short video introducing the Enlightenment thinkers: it’s a lecture/infographic featuring Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and others.

Then I asked the students to become those thinkers. In groups, they wrote skits that placed the philosophers in contemporary, sometimes wacky scenarios. Then they grabbed their scripts and got on their feet.

We were transported to a pizza parlor, where the thinkers tried to decide the best way to split a pizza – an allegory for the separation of powers. (Hobbes also argued that putting pineapple on pizza was evil.) Then we visited an extravagant hotel restaurant, where they debated effective leadership over pancakes. Another skit—considering life, liberty, and property—was set in a bank: Locke and Hobbes were security guards confronted by some would-be robbers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Montesquieu:

Montesquieu: (interrupting, now deeply focused on dividing the cash) Calm down, Hobbes. I’m simply restoring order—true order. (Starts separating the bills into neat piles.) Equal separation of power, just like how the government should work.

Hobbes: (near breakdown) This isn’t about power! You’re robbing the bank! We need strong laws, a king, someone in charge! Without that, everything falls into chaos—like this!

Rousseau: (shaking his head) Laws? Kings? Hobbes, you’ve been brainwashed by corrupt authority. Society is what corrupts people, not the other way around. We’re just taking back what society has stolen from us!

There were props (including tea cups and fake money), accents, and robust discussions after each performance.

America is a country founded on debate. Even the idea of establishing a federal government caused a vigorous disagreement, which continues to this day. I want students to understand that disagreement is not a problem to avoid. It is part of how our country was built. When students can step into different points of view, argue from them, and even laugh with them, they begin to see civic learning as something alive.