Democracy in a Classroom

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i think it's hard to overstate how anti democratic our schools themselves are, right ande. Students have almost no saying what they study, how they learn, how their time is structure. If you're in a typical school system that hasn't explicitly signed on to a programme like action civics, teachers just aren't inspired. You know, the kind of thing that's going to have more impact on the kids lives but is also sort of messy and improvisational and maybe inefficient. Yais crazy when you think about it like that.

In most American schools, children *hear about* democracy, but don’t get to *practice* it. What would a more engaged brand of civics education look like?

Story reported by Ben James, with host John Biewen and collaborator Chenjerai Kumanyika. Interviews with Arielle Jennings, Hilary Moss, and Nikole Hannah-Jones.

The series editor is Loretta Williams. Music by the Summer Street Brass Band, Algiers, John Erik Kaada, Eric Neveux, and Lucas Biewen. Music consulting and production help from Joe Augustine of Narrative Music.

Photo: Stephen Buckley, Jelicity Mercado, Bella Goncalves, and Angelica Pareja, eighth-grade students at Pyne Arts Magnet School in Lowell, Massachusetts, with their award at Civics Day in Boston, December 2019.