From Learner to Leader: In Conversation with Jenna Yuan
Jenna Yuan is the Chair of the Legislative Youth Advisory Council and a student at Eastlake High School in Lake Washington. She spoke with OSPI about her piece in the 10th Anniversary Edition of From Seed to Apple, OSPI’s annual publication of reflections by Washington’s Teachers of the Year. For the 10th Edition, OSPI worked with students, legislators, previous teachers of the year, and others to bring an expanded perspective on education.
Read our interview with Jenna and her piece for the publication, titled From Learner to Leader, below.
How did you find out about From Seed to Apple? What made you want to apply?
I first learned of From Seed to Apple at the in-person selection day for the 2020 Washington Teacher of the Year. Hearing the stories of some truly incredible teachers — about their efforts to promote inclusion for students with disabilities, trauma-informed care, or innovation in physical education — inspired me to help share the stories of students in our state as well. I believe that our stories about school have tremendous potential to build empathy across the great diversity of backgrounds in our state and ultimately, be the catalyst for changing the educational system to serve every students’ needs. I hope students and educators will reflect on how my story mirrors their own experiences and be inspired to continue advocating for positive change.
How did you decide what to write about? Did you know what you wanted to talk about when you found out about it, or did you have to think a lot about it?
I knew I wanted to write about my experiences with social studies education, which has been hugely transformative in shaping my beliefs and values, but I definitely had to engage in self-reflection to choose a topic for my piece. I thought back to my previous social studies classes and what I learned and how I grew in each of them. This process ended with me concluding that my 8th grade social studies class was a turning point in both my belief in the value of civic engagement and my conviction that I could make a meaningful difference within it.
In your piece you talk a lot about the power of your 8th grade civics class in transforming your worldview. What advice would you give to someone who is inspired to take that next step after being inspired by their civics class?
I would advise any student who’s inspired to get involved to just jump in! We’re in an incredible moment for student voice and there are so many local organizations — local youth councils, youth-led community organizations, etc. — which can serve as a perfect bridge to meaningful involvement. Though I’m privileged to have the means to get involved, actively seeking opportunities by going to legislators’ town halls or school board meetings, volunteering on political campaigns, and interning with local service organizations have all been wonderful learning experiences and chances to make a difference.
What would you say to a teacher or legislator who asked you how they could better encourage students to become engaged in civics?
For teachers and legislators, the most important element of promoting student voice and civic engagement is to actually authentically value it. Initiatives that attempt to engage and amplify the voices of young people should be genuine forums to listen to youth priorities and concerns. They should not tokenize youth voices or use them to further one’s own agenda. Resources like Hart’s Ladder of Participation or the 5 Principles of Authentic Engagement can help adults engage in reflection about the authenticity of their efforts. Promoting many of the wonderful opportunities in our state which allow students to be meaningfully involved in government, such as the Washington State Legislative Youth Advisory Council, the Washington World Fellows program, or the Senate Page program, can also help encourage students to become engaged in civics.
How will the transformation that started in 8th grade civics continue to grow into the future? What’s on the horizon for you that wouldn’t have been, without that class jumpstarting your interest in civic engagement?
I’m grateful that my experiences in K-12 social studies classes have fostered a life-long love for our democratic institutions. Currently, I plan to pursue a related major in college — potentially public policy, political science, or sociology — and a future career in government. However, regardless of what my future looks like, I know I will be equipped with the ability to meaningfully engage in our political system.
You write about the cultural context that your family — as first-generation immigrants — brought to your level of political awareness. Is there any advice that you would give to first-generation immigrants (or their children) to help families become engaged in the civic process?
I would advise first-generation immigrants to lean in to community and cultural groups, which have recently become much more active in civic life. Finding that critical source of support can help immigrants engage with the culture of their homeland, access the resources to learn more about the American political process (including about voting and citizenship), and importantly, build collective power to fight for causes they believe in.
From Learner to Leader
Dynamic stories ignite the spark of civic engagement
Within the past year, I’ve been elected to lead a council of my peers, given a speech to hundreds of teenagers at the state capitol, and testified at a legislative committee hearing. However, if you could travel back in time and tell my younger self that I’d one day participate in these amazing opportunities, I would never have believed you. After all, I was shy and quiet. I preferred reading in the library to socializing during recess and would sooner die than raise my hand in class. I rarely even spoke in the classroom — much less volunteered to speak publicly in front of a room full of people.
My parents immigrated from China almost twenty years ago, which makes me a second-generation immigrant and the first American citizen in my family. As a result, conversations at our dinner table were dominated by chatter about school, work, vacation, my grandparents, getting a pet — anything but American politics. Since they could not vote (and had been born in a country where the right wasn’t granted to citizens at all), I remained unaware of its importance. Through no fault of their own, the cultural context they grew up in was vastly different from America’s lively culture of participatory democracy. Since political socialization is largely determined by one’s family, I didn’t grow up with the same level of political awareness as some of my peers.
Combined, these factors meant that I would probably be the last person you’d earmark as a future leader — or even someone who would be civically engaged at all. In fact, before 8th grade, I would have agreed with you. I was perfectly content to remain in my comfort zone of skating along in school without really engaging with my learning. I believed social studies and the political system were boring. To me, social studies classes simply consisted of memorizing names and dates, with no critical thinking required at all.
That all changed when I was in 8th grade. In Redmond Middle School (as I’m sure is the case at every middle school), rumors spread rampantly, and I had heard negative things about my new social studies class. Apparently, the teacher didn’t use a textbook, assigned unnecessarily difficult work, and — gasp — forced you to participate in class. On the first day, new binder filled with first-person historical texts and carefully color-coded worksheets in hand, I was already prepared to hate the class.
But surprisingly, I didn’t hate the class. In fact, I began to look forward to it every day. It was far from memorizing names and dates. Instead, we read the mesmerizing stories from history that I hadn’t ever even heard before — not only Jefferson’s musings about the Constitution, but the stories of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North America, enslaved peoples before the Civil War, and civil rights activists in the 1960s. Unlike my previous experiences, class didn’t feel like an episode of Jeopardy, where we were interrogated endlessly about mundane facts. Our teacher actually asked us for our perspectives. Was Japanese internment necessary during World War II? Should the US have dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Despite my previous unwillingness, I found myself engaging more and more, eager to discover not just the ‘what’ of history, but the ‘why.’ In fact, for our year-long project, I chose to write a 10-minute long speech to present in front of the class. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel scared or intimidated. I loved my self-selected topic — Betty Friedan and 1960s-era feminism — so much, the speech seemed to write itself, and when it came time to present, I knew I was confident in what I’d created.
That one social studies class in 8th grade changed my life. I believed I was simply learning about history, but in reality, I learned how to become a good civic leader. Giving me the opportunity to actively engage with material and develop perspectives helped me develop the critical thinking skills and confidence necessary to go forth and bring my views to the real world. In fact, I believe all of my peers and I developed into good leaders during that class. We didn’t all suddenly become more confident or more inherently intelligent. Instead, we gained the true tools to engage with our communities in meaningful ways: to listen to others, to think about our own views, and to change in what we believed.
I am so grateful I now know the importance of civic engagement. I have the agency to create change, fight for what I believe in, and go forth to become the best citizen I can be. No matter where my future takes me, I know that being equipped with awareness of the institutions and systems around me and having the confidence to speak out has created possibilities that the shy kid I used to be could never even have imagined.
Read more inspiring stories from education in our 10th Anniversary From Seed to Apple.
