With an election year on the horizon, polarizing messages permeating social media, and survey responses showing that students feel they might be treated differently based on their political beliefs, Emma Willard School faculty began to sense a need for a new direction in how we think about and teach civic discourse. Since last spring, a designated Civic Discourse Task Force, led by Dr. Ashley Bennett and Caroline Boyajian, has spent countless hours developing a plan.
“It started with informal observations around our students’ changing ability to navigate conversations in class,” Director of Curriculum and Innovation Caroline Boyajian explains. “We noticed them clamming up a little bit more, hesitating to say anything that might offend. What we’ve observed in the Emma Willard student community is not different from what’s happening in society at large. We just don’t practice communicating across differences, and it feels like learning how to do that is really aligned with our school mission. It’s aligned with what it means to have a high-quality liberal arts education.”
“We talk often about safety and making sure students feel safe,” Director of College Counseling Dr. Ashley Bennett shares. “But are we reluctant to push them towards discomfort? If we keep them in a bubble, do they know how to debate and engage in challenging conversations when they leave us? We are a microcosm of a larger society, so what do we do with that when our society is polarized right now?”
The Civic Discourse Task Force* gathered last June to begin imagining a unique-to-Emma focus on civic discourse to address these challenges head-on. The composition of the team was intentional—chosen from a group of people who self-nominated—to make sure there was not only departmental representation but also diverse experiences and perspectives. On one long workshop day, the group identified opportunities for improvement in the Emma community’s discourse skills, established a framework for advancing best practices, and laid out solutions to engage one another in the challenging work. The result of this effort was a definition and a plan to move the conversation forward.
Civic Discourse is the act of communicating across differences as a way to better understand matters of local, national, and global importance. It is a deliberative process that promotes understanding, builds trust, and develops respect. It is also a tool to prevent isolation, and build capacity to effectively participate in challenging conversations. This year, we will:
- Establish norms and guidelines
- Share our current approaches and research
- Practice, practice, practice
- Create systems for emotional support.
The task force established a set of competencies to develop in our students, and they tied each to one of the three pillars of the Emma Willard program: intellectual flexibility, purpose and community, and equity and justice. The statements included: Our students will be able to… Take a position with the understanding that others may feel differently, and be willing and able to explain where it comes from. Listen deeply and show it. Ask earnest questions and raise concerns. Speak to learn, not to win. Change their minds based on sound argumentation, new facts, and the stories of others. Build and maintain a healthy news diet. Identify and embrace mechanisms for change.
Because the presidential election in the United States was coming up quickly, the team made it a priority to begin a series of Morning Reports presentations. History Department Chair Katie Duglin engaged students in a civics lesson, providing details about the mechanics of elections in the United States. Assistant Director of Research and Archives Stephanie Ross reviewed tips for evaluating news sources, featuring tips from the News Literacy Project. Theatre Director Faith Lawson and Associate Director of Equity and Inclusion Gemma Halfi presented a skit on the skill of identifying where a statement or opinion falls in Hallin’s Spheres—the sphere of consensus, of legitimate controversy, and of unsupported controversy.
The task force also took time during Morning Reports to remind students about the school’s election guidelines. These include not just the role of the school in being a space that exercises disciplined non-partisanship among adults (and the importance of non-partisanship to a non-profit organization), but also learning “open inquiry” that deepens and sharpens habits of mind by holding different perspectives in tension and engaging with disagreement. Students were asked to remember our community agreements…
- Be curious.
- Be brave and take healthy risks.
- Embrace diverse identities, skills, interests, backgrounds, and ways of thinking and being.
- Approach new people, cultures, and ideas with generosity, openness, and flexibility.
- Take responsibility for our community by actively caring for each other.
- Interrogate our own most deeply held beliefs and, in the process, discover what matters most to us.
- Celebrate honesty, authenticity, and vulnerability in ourselves and in others.
- Actively engage in difficult conversations and productive conflict.
- Advocate for belonging, equity, and justice in our communities.
During Teaching and Learning meetings, faculty and advisors have had the opportunity to practice navigating scenarios to support and foster civic dialogue in moments of challenge or disagreement in the classroom. They have begun taking those practices to students, both in the classroom and during advisory meetings.
The Civic Discourse Task Force continues to meet weekly, developing curriculum to be used in advisory gatherings and planning future presentations. By spring, student leaders in groups like the Student Diversity Leadership Group and Democracy Matters club will be engaged to add the student perspective into planning future conversations.
This work has been motivated by what we have been seeing in the community over recent years, and the upcoming election has been the perfect opportunity to focus deeply on civic discourse as a community this fall. “To actively ask our students to engage in modern-day connections to what they're learning feels like a worthy thing for us to be working on,” Caroline comments, noting that both faculty and students have been very receptive and are leaning into the work.
“The Civic Discourse Task Force has been embraced wholeheartedly as we have shared our conversations with the larger community,” Dr. Bennett says. “It’s encouraging to know that Emma is ready for this work. While it’s not easy, we are a fantastic community, and we can do hard things.”
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If you would like to learn more about civic discourse and hone your own skills, check out some of these resources gathered by the task force:
- Resource hub of The Mill Institute at the University of Texas at Austin
- Resources for Educators in an Election Season from the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS)
- How We Argue professional development from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education
* Task force: Director of College Counseling Dr. Ashley Bennett, Language Instructor Eloise Bererd, Director of Curriculum and Innovation Caroline Boyajian, History Department Chair Katie Duglin, Associate Director of Equity and Inclusion Gemma Halfi, Mathematics Instructor Brett LaFave, Theatre Instructor Faith Lawson, Senior Associate Director of College Counseling and Senior Class Dean Abbey Massoud-Tastor, Associate Director of Student Life for Boarding Nicole Miranda, Assistant Director of Research and Archives Stephanie Ross, and History Instructor Isabell Shields.
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