The Civic - Minded Classroom and Power of Voice

Today’s changing society has promoted classrooms that have become faced with questions about COVID 19, current events, political viewpoints, and students wondering where they fit in within the new norms of society. As educators, we have a large responsibility to respond to the changes in society, along with differences in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and teach students not only to become college and career ready, but also civic ready.

You may be wondering, “what is civic ready?” Civic ready students are those who are alert, thoughtful, engaged, and inquisitive members of society. Developing classrooms that invite opportunities for change, and ways to create civic ready students, will assist in an overall investment to help better our society. As educators, we can assist in developing all students to learn how to become civic-minded students by teaching them to seek knowledge from multiple sources, reminding them to be alert to self-identity and bias, and teach them to be critical and engaged consumers and producers of media.
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The Civically Engaged Classroom by Mary Ehrenworth, Pablo Wolfe, and Marc Todd, recently published in 2021, proposes vast, meaningful strategies for reading, writing, and speaking for change. This text will be of assistance in creating classrooms designed as spaces where truth is practiced, exposed, accepted, challenged, embraced, or even resisted.

Students already have a voice, and the work of The Civically Engaged Classroom, is to provide educators with new ways to work with teaching students to use their voices with confidence and power. The classroom can be a place for all students to experience what it means to live in community with others, while also challenging them to overcome differences. 

At Pioneer Middle School, Art Teachers, Mr. Daggett and Mr. Necci are allowing students to use their voice in their Social Issue Poster Project. Displayed around the school are posters that encapsulate student emotion, passion, and engagement around a social issue. Students are encouraged to think about a social issue that is passionate to them, and the examples that are displayed around the school are powerful.

Think about the goal of creating civic ready students...

to create alert, thoughtful, engaged, inquisitive, and active citizens of society

Educators, this can be challenging. This is going to be an ongoing process for ourselves and for our students, however, this will allow for student awareness. Change will come if critical conversations are occurring in classrooms, and if we as educators are equipped to use critical lenses to sift through the abundant information and data that our students consume from their own devices. As we can see from these student posters, students powerfully “voiced” their opinions through these posters when given the opportunity to meaningfully and appropriately do so. 

This book provides an ample number of resources for you to use in your classroom, and a vast array of eye-opening ways that we can ensure that all voices in our schools are heard.
Here are some examples of available resources within the text.
Resources to Empower Students Writing and Ensure that All Voices can be Heard:

• -  Allow for the use of speech-to-text software.
  
• -  Let students decide if they want to write on paper or with a device.
  
• -  Consider alternate expressions. Can a student create a podcast? A video? A poster to go
  along with a public presentation?
  
• -  Involve family members. -
  Resources for introducing current events in your classroom:
  Above the Noise: PBS Series aimed at young people to explain current events
  

- https://ny.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/above-the-noise-collection/
The New York Times Learning Network: lesson plans, activities, and suggestions for how to
bring current events into the classroom
- https://www.nytimes.com/section/learning 

By: Jenna Fontaine, CA BOCES Professional Development