On Wednesday, Nov. 12, the Hopkins at Home program hosted “Education is a Cornerstone of Democracy: A Conversation with the School of Education,” a virtual livestreamed talk. Jennifer Pelton, the associate dean for development and alumni relations at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, served as the moderator.
The conversation featured three speakers. The first was Ashley Berner, an associate professor who serves as the director of the Hopkins Institute for Education Policy. She is also the author of several books and journal articles on education. The second speaker was Joseph Reilly, an assistant research scientist with the Center for Research and Reform in Education (CRRE) who specializes in educational psychology. The third speaker was Shinui Kim, a doctoral student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education who researches topics such as inequity in education and the role of education in sociopolitical movements. In an email to The News-Letter, Berner described her motivations behind hosting this event.
“The Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy at the School of Education, has designed tools and research projects to support young people's citizenship preparation,” she wrote. “It's exciting and hopeful, and we want people to know that the School of Education, including our PhD students, are on the case!”
During the talk, Berner began by talking about four important components of civic skills: civic knowledge (one’s understanding of government, history, economy, geography), civic skills (one’s ability to write, interpret graphs, speak publicly), the habit of civic engagement (community service and involvement) and the practice of civil tolerance (being able to disagree respectfully with others but still maintain strong beliefs).
Berner continued, explaining that the School of Education has developed the School Culture 360 Survey to collect data assessing whether schools around the country are providing civic education.
Kim, who specializes in researching the open classroom climate, discussed the importance of discussion and diversity of opinions in the classroom.
“We know from research that the learning environment plays a major role in civic education, as it both influences acquiring knowledge and supports students' virtue and values,” Kim said. “Furthermore, the open classroom climate explores whether students or teachers feel safe or allowed to have different opinions and express them, which is highly associated with civil tolerance as well as open classroom climate data.”
The School Culture 360 Survey has collected data from about 3,000 schools across the United States and has gathered information on student relations, fairness, safety, bullying and more. The data is based on responses from students and teachers.
In addition to data collection, the School of Education undertakes other projects to advance civic engagement. Reilley discussed that the School of Education is working with the Bill of Rights Institute, a nonprofit that produces free resources for teachers, to help teach students about civic engagement.
Reilley also explained that they work with the National Civics Bee, a national competition for middle school students based on knowledge in civics and civic engagement. All three speakers attended the national championship in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 11.
Pelton then shifted the conversation to ask the speakers about their most inspiring experiences from this field of work. Reilley highlighted a National Civics Bee competitor whose town threw her a parade when she was leaving for the competition.
“Because of the government shutdown, her flight got canceled, but they decided to drive all the way, 16 or 17 hours, to arrive at the National Civics Bee because of the support of their community… I thought that was a really cool anecdote about the kind of the quality of families that are coming into this and the support that there is for civics.”
Kim expanded on the inspirational nature of the National Civics Bee.
“Civics starts from tiny things in [students’] daily lives, and the important thing that National Civics Bee did for [students] was that they could advance their ideas into practice… They can actually have some self efficacy, self esteem and sense of achievement by advancing these things into action, and I think that’s really important in civics.”
The speakers then took questions from the audience. One audience member asked how to balance the tension between the concrete knowledge of certain concepts and viewpoint diversity or accepting multiple perspectives. Berner responded that it’s important for all students to have a baseline of knowledge, but a good curriculum should also have viewpoint diversity, such as comparative religion or politics, built in.
“For example, every child in this country needs to know the Constitution. They may disagree with what it means, whether the Constitution was crafted out of an agenda around slave holding, and so forth. As kids get older, they should learn about different interpretations, but they still need to know what the Constitution says,” she states.
Another audience member asked about the growing push for civics education among adults. Berner replied, acknowledging that many children did not have the opportunity to learn about civics and therefore want to learn more about it in adulthood. She mentioned resources such as iCivics that allow parents to learn alongside their kids. Berner also noted that competitive districts increase civic involvement, thus gerrymandering can decrease engagement.
In an email to The News-Letter, Berner commented on what she hopes audience members will take away from the event.
“Civic preparation remains a core responsibility of schools and of civil society (so many providers of civic content are non-profits that operate outside of schools but also within them!),” Berner explained. “Many American institutions — including business, non profits, and all different kinds of schools — remain committed to creating civic opportunities for young people… meaningful civic engagement changes young people's lives.”
