In the first four months of the Trump Administration, communities across the state and nation have suffered unprecedented cuts to vital publicly-funded services. In a recent post for our national union’s Medium blog, Brian Grinrod (middle, in photo above), a member of our AFT Connecticut-affiliated New Haven Federation of Teachers, told the story of a relevant example. He shared how young people with limited access to resources risk losing out on a program that has served as “a great equalizer:”
If you hear that funding has been cut for teaching students about the Constitution, you might not think that’s a great tragedy. How is constitutional law relevant to teenagers’ lives, anyway? Don’t they need basic reading, writing and arithmetic?
But if you hear that students lose out on learning research skills they’ll need if they go on to college, that they’ll miss building the confidence they need for first job interviews, won’t get to practice the teamwork modern workplaces demand, and will lose out on gaining a deeper understanding of how exactly their own country works – and their own role in maintaining a vibrant community and a thriving democracy – you might pay more attention. And you might understand just how much cuts to public education will hurt our students.
Click here for press reporting on our members’ efforts to protect kids from threats to their learning opportunities.
I am a history teacher at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, and every year I guide my students through the We the People program. I witnessed how this experience can transform a classroom, because I was trained to teach these kids on a whole new level. I owe that to the federal SEED (Supporting Effective Educator Development) grant that provided me with such training through the James Madison Legacy Project. This research-based grant made me a better student of the U.S. Constitution and better teacher to my students.
This valuable program inspired me to become a mentor to other teachers. Now, I may not be able to help others profit from this professional learning because similar grant funding has been eliminated.
That is a loss for history teachers like me, but mostly it is a loss for our students.
Click here for initial reporting featuring Grinrod’s remarks on cuts to the program and similar federal grants.
On paper, We the People is all about the study of the Constitution. But dig a little deeper – or just visit my classroom – and you’ll see it’s actually all about students working together, trading responsibilities, and practicing leadership and cooperation. It’s about students learning to move outside their comfort zones – literally – when they speak before their peers or go to a federal courthouse, a college lecture hall, or even to Washington, D.C., to compete with young people from all over the country. It’s about kids learning that failure can be unnerving, but the success that comes after making a few mistakes feels that much sweeter.
For a group of students who have limited access to resources – such as well-funded schools and top-notch facilities – We the People is a great equalizer. Every student, regardless of what kind of neighborhood their family lives in, can benefit from the program, which is about as far from worksheets and multiple choice tests as you can get.
This experiential learning program takes kids through deep learning about a constitutional topic – like voting rights or freedom of expression – and then teaches them the skills they need to discuss and debate it in historical and contemporary contexts. Then they go before a panel of adult judges who act as members of Congress and they participate in a mock congressional hearing, defending their ideas and demonstrating their knowledge.
Click here to learn more about the program from the Center for Civic Education.
Students start with a silly warmup we call the Candy Congress. Teams of students are each given a piece of candy, and they work up an argument about why their candy should be the official candy of the United States. They might talk about the history of the candy, the way the wrapper represents the country, or how its taste sets it above all the others. They come up with introductory speeches and answer follow-up questions to defend their choice.
Topics are more serious as the program progresses, but the emphasis is on what we call “civic dispositions and virtues.” We are teaching constitutional concepts, but we are teaching them through empathy, compassion, respect and individual responsibility – all transferable skills, 21st century skills, and all hallmarks of engaged, effective citizenship.
All of this takes place in the classroom; we prepare and even practice mock hearings right at school and in a federal courtroom. But some students are able to take it to another level, at the state or even national competitions. These events open doors to broader thinking, help kids develop self confidence and teach them more about the Constitution than many adults know.
Click here to learn more about local sponsorship of the program from the Connecticut Democracy Project.
We the People was launched in 1987 when a commission chaired by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger established it as part of the Constitution’s bicentennial. Since that time, more than 75,000 educators and 30 million students have participated in mock congressional hearings in every state and the District of Columbia, arguing and discussing key points of the Constitution with judges posing as members of Congress.
In 2023, my class participated in the Connecticut We the People event and won the John Lewis award, a scholarship reserved for students from high-needs schools who can use the money to attend the national competition in Washington, D.C.
Without that opportunity, my class would have never been able to compete and do well at the national finals. Connecticut is dominated by wealthy suburban schools that are competitive and have more advantages and access to preparation resources, which my students do not have. Without the training and support I received from the We the People grant and its network of educators, I would never have been able to prepare my students for this trip of a lifetime.
Click here for reporting on the 2023 scholarship award for Grinrod’s team.
I love the fact that my students were informed and prepared enough to argue, among other things, about whether direct democracy practices – like ballot questions – are a fair way to create policy. Most members of Congress are older, wealthy people, the students argued, and might not represent the younger, lower-income people in their district who should be able to vote directly on issues that matter to them. On the other hand, many people can’t make it to the polls to cast their votes, others argued, so the policy might exclude too many from the process.
This is critical thinking that will serve my students long after they graduate. But I also love the fact that a star student who is comfortable speaking in front of the school board and state legislature, and has advocated for more funding for the district, is working on a team with a student who told me privately that he didn’t think he had the ability to compete in We the People, that he didn’t want to go to college and “just” wanted to be a mechanic. Watching those students work together, and later seeing that future mechanic finish the competition with pride — that’s the real value of this program.
For the past two years in my region, the Center for Civic Education has brought this program to elementary and middle school teachers in Title I schools through a SEED grant. “We the People: Civics that Empowers All Students” provided 36 hours of professional development at the University of Massachusetts-Boston the past two summers, allowing for follow-up meetings with participants who could check in with more seasoned educators and adjust their lesson plans and approaches to be as effective as possible with their students throughout the school year. After several years of teaching and participating in We the People competitions, I am now a mentor for teachers new to the program.
Click here for reporting on the local impact of federally-funded service cuts quoting Grinrod and fellow union members.
That funding is now gone for elementary and middle school teachers, and with it the opportunity for teachers like me in high-needs schools to offer this incredible learning opportunity to their students.
Losing a program like this strikes at the core of what education is all about. As I told the Associated Press, the students are always the ones who lose out.
Click here for Grinrod’s original “AFT Voices” blog post at Medium.
