Using lessons from civics class to help Oklahoma teachers do more than just walkout
Action civics lessons provide resources not just for students in the classroom but for their teachers working for change.
From Altus to Miami, Oklahoma, teachers are considering a walkout to force the state legislature’s hand on teacher pay raises. Oklahoma pay wages are among the lowest in the country and many teachers have to work second and third jobs to support themselves and their families. While striking, a long-time tactic for civic leverage, may seem intuitive, without a collective goal to solve a systemic root cause and targeting the person or group of people who can make the policy change, a teacher walkout will fall on deaf ears.
Action Civics, a curriculum being integrated in public schools across Oklahoma, is used across the country to promote project-based civics education.
Action Civics is an in-class approach to robust civics education that provides students with civic knowledge, cultivates civic skills, and teaches students to participate in democratic processes all in the context of solving real community problems through government channels. The key framework for identifying and systematically addressing problems is the Advocacy Hourglass.
Students identify a bank of community issues, learn to build consensus by selecting one to focus on for a semester, and conduct Participatory Action Research to discover the root cause. The students then articulate a concise, concrete goal toward which each member of the class will direct their efforts, identify the people who have the power to make the change students want to see, learn to map power by identifying the people who could influence those in power, and then build a multi-tactic campaign to achieve their goal.
Such a structure can help any group working to collectively change a policy or a budget, and teachers in Oklahoma deserve to have access to it to strengthen their approach as they strike for a fair wage.
This framework has worked as an outline for tens-of-thousands of students across the country. These are some of the lessons we’ve learned we hope will benefit the teachers who have taught us so much in this process:
Articulate the community issues. Recognize at any given time there are numerous, often countless, community issues at play behind civic unrest and frustration. At the moment of the teacher walkout, there are also many experiencing homelessness, hunger, or the limitations of minimal infrastructure for public transportation. By articulating these issues upfront and naming them, you hold them as a part of the collective issue and do not dismiss them. However, when collaborating with the community at large it is important to narrow down your focus.
Reach consensus on the focus issue. Recognize at any given time there are numerous, often countless, community issues at play behind civic unrest and frustration. At the moment of the teacher walkout, there are also many experiencing homelessness, hunger, or the limitations of minimal infrastructure for public transportation. By articulating these issues upfront and naming them, you hold them as a part of the collective issue and do not dismiss them. However, when collaborating with the community at large it is important to narrow down your focus.
Analyze the root cause. Recognize the distinction between individual and systemic root cause. When engaged in an emotional issue, it is easy to target the individual root causes. We want to put a face and a name with our frustration. This is what we must resist. Instead ask: what systems are at play preventing an issue from happening or contributing to the root cause?
Set your collective policy goal. This is where you must “do your homework”. Research is important here and remember no one is an expert on everything. Bring in as many experts on your issue as possible. Now, you know what system you are working within and you need to identify a proven solution you can collectively request. It is important to bring in all of the players at this point. Collaboration is key to solicit buy-in from various parties and have a broad range of potential solutions.
Identify your targets and your “ask”. Your targets are the person or persons who can make the change AND the person or persons who influence them. The key here is to avoid barking up the wrong tree. You want to take your explicit ask “policy goal” to the person(s) who has direct control over the outcome of your goal and you want to rally the support of those who influence them. The “ask” is your clear request. If you want them to vote for or against a specific bill, your ask must include a yes or no on a specific bill number.
Develop your tactics. Now, and only now, are you at the point you are ready to go into action. Team work makes the dream work at this point and without all of the following three buckets of action, your goal is sure to fall flat.
(1) Develop a strategic plan that will lobby the decision maker directly
(2) Develop your argument
(3) Rally support from the influencers
To illustrate the process, here is an example of a recent project Students at John Marshall High School in Oklahoma City identified police relations as an issue negatively impacting their community. They brought in a diverse group of guest speakers including a representative from Black Lives Matter and a Sergeant from the OKCPD to learn more about the issue. Through participatory action research, what began as a goal to increase police training around the use of force was refocused to seek community dialogue solutions and cultivate trust between police officers and the communities they serve.
These students show us the potential impact that opening up lines of dialogue among the make up our state can have on productive civic engagement. It’s time for the state legislature and Oklahoma teachers to come together to ensure that Oklahoma teachers are paid what they deserve, if for no other reason than those same teachers are training up a generation of engaged citizen who will not settle for this state of dysfunction.
