CBH TALK - Break Glass In Case of Emergency: Why Democracy Education Is Not a Drill
American democracy faces historic and urgent challenges. With irreconcilable polarization and a profound loss of confidence in government, the question “What will save our democracy?” looms large. One answer focuses on how we prepare the next generation of citizens. According to Educating for American Democracy whose "Roadmap" framework on civics and history is championed by New York City’s Department of Education, at the federal level we spend approximately $50 per student per year on STEM education and approximately five cents per student per year on civics.
Join us for a conversation with an ideologically, demographically, and professionally diverse group of experts about the budding movement to prioritize civics and history education nationwide, the challenge of coming to consensus on how and what we teach, and why this movement is critical to reestablishing a healthy democracy. National Conference on Citizenship CEO Caleb Gayle leads the discussion with Paul Carrese, founding director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University, Ohio State University Professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries, host of the podcast Teaching Hard History, Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, the Newhouse Director of CIRCLE, part of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University, and Jenna Ryall, the Director of Civics for All at the New York City Department of Education.
This program is offered in partnership with Queens Public Library & New York Public Library, and supported by the GoVoteNYC Fund in The New York Community Trust.
To explore the Brooklyn Public Library’s 28th Amendment initiative click here.
Participants
Paul Carrese is the founding director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. For nearly two decades he was a professor of political science at the United States Air Force Academy. He is author of The Cloaking of Power: Montesquieu, Blackstone, and The Rise of Judicial Activism, and co-editor of three other books – on George Washington, constitutionalism, and American grand strategy. His most recent book is Democracy in Moderation: Montesquieu, Tocqueville, and Sustainable Liberalism. He has held fellowships at Harvard University; the University of Delhi (as a Fulbright fellow); and the James Madison Program, Politics Department, Princeton University. He served as a Principal Investigator for the Educating For American Democracy Roadmap.
Caleb Gayle is the CEO of the National Conference on Citizenship. Previously he worked at Boston Consulting Group after completing both his MBA and master’s degree in public policy from Harvard Business School and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government as a Soros Fellow. He is a writer and fellow at New America where he writes about the impact of history on race and identity. He was named a 2018-2019 Demos Emerging Voices Fellow, where he detailed the challenges to voting rights around the country. Gayle’s writing has been featured in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Atlantic, the New York Times Magazine, the Three Penny Review, the Harvard Review, Pacific Standard, The New Republic, the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Review of Books, among others.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries is associate professor of history at the Ohio State University where he teaches on Civil Rights and Black Power Movement. Dr. Jeffries served as the lead historian for the five-year, $25 million renovation of the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. He is the host of the podcast Teaching Hard History: American Slavery, a production of the Teaching Tolerance division of the Southern Poverty Law Center. He is the editor of Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, which won the 2020 James Harvey Robinson Prize from the American Historical Association for the most outstanding contribution to the teaching and learning of history in any field for public or educational purposes. He also wrote and narrated the 10-episode Audible Original series Great Figures of the Civil Rights Movement, released in February 2020.
Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg is the Newhouse Director of The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. CIRCLE is a nonpartisan national research institute that focuses on youth civic and political learning and engagement. CIRCLE uses its expansive portfolio of research initiatives, tools for practitioners, organizations, educators and other civic stakeholders and reports to advance equity-centered policy and practice in the civic sector. She served as a Principal Investigator for the Educating For American Democracy Roadmap and is also a member of EAD's Implementation Consortium.
Jenna Ryall is the Director of Civics for All at the New York City Department of Education. She co-designed the Civics for All initiative, a comprehensive K-12 civic education program available to all NYCDOE schools. Among Civics for All’s many components are a K-12 curriculum, a school-based participatory budgeting effort, and a student voter registration drive responsible for registering 50,000 new voters in the last three years. Jenna began her career in education as a middle school social studies teacher in the Bronx, New York. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Fordham University and a Master’s degree and Post-Master’s Certificate from Stony Brook University.
American democracy faces historic and urgent challenges. With irreconcilable polarization and a profound loss of confidence in government, the question “What will save our democracy?” looms large. One answer focuses on how we prepare the next generation of citizens. According to Educating for American Democracy whose "Roadmap" framework on civics and history is championed by New York City’s Department of Education, at the federal level we spend approximately $50 per student per year on STEM education and approximately five cents per student per year on civics.
Join us for a conversation with an ideologically, demographically, and professionally diverse group of experts about the budding movement to prioritize civics and history education nationwide, the challenge of coming to consensus on how and what we teach, and why this movement is critical to reestablishing a healthy democracy. National Conference on Citizenship CEO Caleb Gayle leads the discussion with Paul Carrese, founding director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University, Ohio State University Professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries, host of the podcast Teaching Hard History, Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, the Newhouse Director of CIRCLE, part of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University, and Jenna Ryall, the Director of Civics for All at the New York City Department of Education.
This program is offered in partnership with Queens Public Library & New York Public Library, and supported by the GoVoteNYC Fund in The New York Community Trust.
To explore the Brooklyn Public Library’s 28th Amendment initiative click here.
Participants
Paul Carrese is the founding director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. For nearly two decades he was a professor of political science at the United States Air Force Academy. He is author of The Cloaking of Power: Montesquieu, Blackstone, and The Rise of Judicial Activism, and co-editor of three other books – on George Washington, constitutionalism, and American grand strategy. His most recent book is Democracy in Moderation: Montesquieu, Tocqueville, and Sustainable Liberalism. He has held fellowships at Harvard University; the University of Delhi (as a Fulbright fellow); and the James Madison Program, Politics Department, Princeton University. He served as a Principal Investigator for the Educating For American Democracy Roadmap.
Caleb Gayle is the CEO of the National Conference on Citizenship. Previously he worked at Boston Consulting Group after completing both his MBA and master’s degree in public policy from Harvard Business School and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government as a Soros Fellow. He is a writer and fellow at New America where he writes about the impact of history on race and identity. He was named a 2018-2019 Demos Emerging Voices Fellow, where he detailed the challenges to voting rights around the country. Gayle’s writing has been featured in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Atlantic, the New York Times Magazine, the Three Penny Review, the Harvard Review, Pacific Standard, The New Republic, the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Review of Books, among others.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries is associate professor of history at the Ohio State University where he teaches on Civil Rights and Black Power Movement. Dr. Jeffries served as the lead historian for the five-year, $25 million renovation of the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. He is the host of the podcast Teaching Hard History: American Slavery, a production of the Teaching Tolerance division of the Southern Poverty Law Center. He is the editor of Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, which won the 2020 James Harvey Robinson Prize from the American Historical Association for the most outstanding contribution to the teaching and learning of history in any field for public or educational purposes. He also wrote and narrated the 10-episode Audible Original series Great Figures of the Civil Rights Movement, released in February 2020.
Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg is the Newhouse Director of The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. CIRCLE is a nonpartisan national research institute that focuses on youth civic and political learning and engagement. CIRCLE uses its expansive portfolio of research initiatives, tools for practitioners, organizations, educators and other civic stakeholders and reports to advance equity-centered policy and practice in the civic sector. She served as a Principal Investigator for the Educating For American Democracy Roadmap and is also a member of EAD's Implementation Consortium.
Jenna Ryall is the Director of Civics for All at the New York City Department of Education. She co-designed the Civics for All initiative, a comprehensive K-12 civic education program available to all NYCDOE schools. Among Civics for All’s many components are a K-12 curriculum, a school-based participatory budgeting effort, and a student voter registration drive responsible for registering 50,000 new voters in the last three years. Jenna began her career in education as a middle school social studies teacher in the Bronx, New York. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Fordham University and a Master’s degree and Post-Master’s Certificate from Stony Brook University.