At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Kenisha, and Madeline spoke with Charles Tocci, Assistant Professor of Social Studies Education at Loyola University Chicago. Professor Tocci’s work explores the connections between American education and democracy in the past and in the present–so as you can imagine, we had a vibrant conversation. We talked about what makes for good civic education–and how often the reality of what’s on offer falls short of that. Civics has many facets and many features. We agreed that a good civics class should focus on power: how do we access, exercise, and share power? What role do each of us play? How do we make decisions that address the common good? How can we have a collective mindset that makes us feel powerful rather than powerless and rudderless? We agreed that highlighting that we all have a relationship to power—through whether or not we vote, through writing to council members, etc–and reflecting upon how we participate in and circulate power, both currently and over the course of our lives, should be central. As young people, we often don’t see ourselves pictured in government—but we should: we are the missing link. Charlie shared that the bar is often lower than we might think: if 13 constituents reach out to a legislator about an issue, that legislator will often investigate. That said, another key civics lesson we discussed is that you’re going to lose. A lot. It’s important to build civic persistence and resilience if we aspire to be lifelong change-makers. We need to play the long game, and collectively imagine new ways to do politics. Thank you for joining us!
