Civics in the shadow of Capitol Hill: Letter from a D.C. high school

In the wake of last week’s gridlocked rounds of voting for House speaker, sophomore civics skills students at Dunbar High School gathered for their law and justice advocacy class this week just a mile up New Jersey Avenue from the U.S. Capitol to cast their own ballots for class representatives.

“Democracy means power to the people,” says social studies teacher Shelina Warren, passing out ‘vote’ stickers as students drop their green paper ballots in a red-white-and-blue shoebox. Several girls stick them on their cheeks. “We have the power, but if we don’t use it, what’s the benefit?”

She tells her students that they’ve just engaged in the same process that members of the U.S. House did over the weekend – minus the dimensions of a national circus – and that their votes as citizens matter because they elect the representatives who elect the speaker. 

Does anyone know who's third in line of succession to the presidency, she asks the dozen students fighting the fidgets of the last class of the day. 

There’s a smattering of hazy no’s. 

She asks, which “House” they are discussing.

 “The White House?” offers one student who strikes the teen guise of disengagement facing away from the teacher while still answering every question. 

“This, is the White House,” says Ms. Warren, patiently pointing to a tabletop model. “This, is the Capitol building,” she says, pointing to the model of the marble icon of democracy.

She reminds them of their field trip in the rain there last month when they toured the Capitol, not realizing they were walking the halls with freshman representatives there for their own orientation. They were more interested in the empty tombs deep below the Rotunda, once intended for Martha and George Washington.

There are more scattered no’s when she asks if students know the name Nancy Pelosi. And when she asks if Speaker Kevin McCarthy is a Republican or a Democrat, most students seem unsure. One guesses: “A Democrat?”

When Congress feels “far away”

The Capitol building is visible from some classrooms at Dunbar, yet the inner workings of the dome are far from immediate concern of students. It’s not a matter of being uninterested – Ms. Warren knows how to stoke their intellectual curiosity. When the lesson shifts to discussing restorative versus retributive justice, the students perk up and engage in a spirited debate, their voices excited and urgent.

Discrimination is Asianay Butts’ favorite topic to learn about in Ms. Warren’s class, and it’s also what she worries about day-to-day – along with gun violence.

Indeed, just hours after Speaker McCarthy was elected on Jan. 7, middle-schooler Karon Blake was shot and killed. He attended Brookland Middle School, which sends students to Dunbar. And day after day, students in D.C. public schools like Dunbar walk through metal detectors and send their backpacks through to begin their day, just as House members did after the Jan. 6 attack. But under new leadership last week, the House removed its own metal detectors outside the chamber.

Samiyah Munu, one of the class representatives, knew the votes for speaker were taking place, and although she thinks it’s important to learn about Congress, it seems “far away.” She’s more concerned about homelessness, wages, and gun violence than battles for the speakership or committee assignments. And she’s not all that hopeful Congress will solve those issues. It feels like those issues “don’t get talked about” by lawmakers, she says, “even with us living in the city of Congress.”

Nationally, civics educators are detecting that students respond well to hands-on opportunities to make a difference in their communities. Cue the growth of action civics, which calls on students to identify problems in their own sphere of experience and then hear different points of view and learn to navigate conflict with their peers, educators say. 

Whether learning how a bill becomes a law or working to address bullying, action civics is “about the nuts and bolts of how students study different things and learn to improve their communities,” says Khin Mai Aung, New York executive director of civics education organization Generation Citizen.

Individual teachers, like Ms. Warren at Dunbar, have been trying to break down the wall between classroom and community for decades.

Why civics matters

Mikva Challenge is one of many organizations supporting teachers in D.C. and around the country as they implement hands-on curriculums. Ms. Warren works with Mikva’s curriculum and has shepherded students through the organization’s “soapbox challenge,” an event where students present speeches about an issue in their community to a panel of stakeholders, often including a D.C. council member. In the classroom, students choose one of the issues to pursue with an experiential civics project.

This is key, says Robyn Lingo, chief of strategy and impact at Mikva. To become engaged adult citizens, “young people need chances to practice civic skills in schools now.”

And civics education – including teaching students about government processes, activism, and developing youth governance structures within schools – has quantifiable effects. Some 90% of 300 eligible Mikva alumni voted in the 2020 presidential election – 30% higher than the national average – and 77% volunteer in their communities, says Ms. Lingo.

Ms. Warren’s action civics approach is, in a sense, extracurricular: D.C.’s social studies standards, which haven’t changed in 16 years, do not require an action civics project. But Ms. Warren was among the educators shaping a draft of new standards released in December for public comment.

In doing so, the nation’s capital is joining a number of states updating their own social studies standards. A common challenge discussed by educators examining curriculum is how to “include wide perspectives without compromising rigor,” says Noorya Hayat, a senior researcher at Tufts’ Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

And one thing that’s key for all teachers, regardless of location, is the distinction between historical facts like slavery that Ms. Hayat says should not be presented as debatable – and open topics, like forgiving student debt, which would be presented as open for debate.

There are many resources for civics teachers, but access comes down to funding, says Ms. Hayat – pointing to the lopsided federal spending ratio of about $50 a year per student for STEM education to just 5 cents on civics education.

Ms. Warren’s students, though, have no shortage of opportunities to practice civics skills.

Her classroom – full of photos of students participating in mock trials, quotes from activists and writers, and a “Wake me when I’m free” Tupac poster – is a visual of the push to bridge the gap between what she calls “just good pedagogy” (textbook and lecture) and “trying to get students to take some type of action.” 

Her teaching revolves around showing students glimpses of the government up close (like the trip to the Capitol) and civic action they can take (like writing letters to the editor, bringing concerns and ideas to the principal, holding voter registration events, or organizing mental health support).

“I’m just trying to prepare my kids,” says Ms. Warren, so that “when they graduate and walk out of this building for the last time, they will actually be prepared to be productive citizens.”