How Do You Encourage Civic Voice?

Our Civic Education Collaboration is an opportunity to show students how powerful their voices can be and make civic education more relevant and meaningful for students today. Schools are one of the first most important public institutions a young person belongs to — so how might our classrooms set the pace for what engagement looks like? How might we demonstrate to students that their voice matters.

We’ve partnered with ASCD and some incredible organizations in civic education to challenge you to help reshape the future of civic education. Our network of partners include: Call Me Mister, Chavez Schools, Citizen University, Civic Nation, EdCamp, Educators Rising, El Paso Unified School District, Generation Citizen, iCivics, NOYS, Teach to Lead, Tufts Circle, and We the Willing.

Together, we’re asking:How might we prepare our students to be civically powerful and use their unique voices to address issues that matter to them?

The Collaboration runs from September 14 to November 22, and the design process is grounded in concrete themes that we learn from you.

To begin, we’re asking teachers how you encourage civic voices in your classroom! Your responses will help reveal early opportunities for design.

For example, check out what these educators shared:

How to share.

Fill in the blank to this prompt and post your insight on Twitter with the hashtag #CivicVoices:

I encourage my students’ civic voice by ______________.

Think about how you encourage students’ civic voice in your classroom or school. Have you hosted discussions about local causes & issues? Guided students towards their passions? What have you tried that elicited students’ voice.

You can also jump in to the Collaboration on The Teachers Guild. We’ve created this series of Hacktivities you can try in your classroom or school to hack your way to deep empathy and begin designing new solutions for civic education.

We’re looking forward to collaborating with you!