Action Civics Is a Game Changer

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Action civics is a curriculum that builds the democratic dispositions of its student participants, even as those students work to fix the very problems that magnify inequity in their schools and communities. The class votes for the students who will present their project at civic day. So far they've picked stephen bella and angelica o sogelicity. They're feeling good about themselves, ready for this responsibility. It's not hard to rail against an education system structured around segregation and other systemic inequities. But there is no other institution that continues to bring americans together across so many divisions as are public schools.

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.