Civic Learning Week Forum Explores Why Civics Matter
By Mary Ryan | National Archives News
WASHINGTON, March 10, 2023 — The first national Civic Learning Week got off to an enthusiastic start with the opening forum on Tuesday, March 7. The National Archives and National Archives Foundation joined iCivics to co-sponsor Civic Learning Week, and the Archives hosted the forum in the William G. McGowan Theater at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC.
Holding the forum at the National Archives was particularly appropriate since the agency has long championed civic education.
In welcoming participants, both in the theater and online, Acting Archivist of the United States Debra Steidel Wall remarked that “as the caretaker of our nation’s founding documents, the National Archives plays a leading role in preserving and strengthening constitutional democracy in the United States.” She added, “Our new national civic education initiative, Civics for All of US, builds upon the agency’s longstanding commitment to civic learning as a path to civic engagement.”
Wall further emphasized that “in our age of information overload, misinformation, and disinformation, access to and an understanding of authentic documents is powerful and necessary, particularly for educators and their students as they seek to understand our past and strive to become the informed citizenry of the future.”
Participants heard from federal and state officials, teachers, students, policy advocates, and researchers.
Shelly Lowe, Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, delivered welcoming remarks, and New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu sat down with Danielle Allen of Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics to discuss what state leaders can do to prioritize civic learning.
The seven panels examined the need for civic education, its meaning and impact, and paths for the future.
In a presentation titled “Democracy Starts Here: Civics for All of US at the National Archives,” Lee Glazer, Director of Museum Programs at the National Archives, described Civics for All of US, which is led by National Archives educators across the country and provides live distance learning programs, professional development for educators, and online resources for use in the classroom and beyond.
“As a nonpartisan institution and the world’s largest digital archive,” said Glazer, “the National Archives offers trusted resources and programs to communities across the country, regardless of their proximity to an Archives facility.”
Glazer also noted that the forum for Civic Learning Week “reflects the growth in the field and a recognition that despite—or really because of—increased polarization and division across American society, the need to build civic knowledge and dispositions is more urgent now than ever.”
During this week, Glazer added, two Civics for All of US programs—“Voting Rights, the Constitution, and Representative Government” and “The First Amendment: Five Rights in One!”—would be presented online, and she invited the audience to explore those and other programs on the Civics for All of US website.
A common theme during the forum was the need to embed civics into many aspects of life and learn how to evaluate the reliability of information and the importance of recognizing reliable sources. The speakers emphasized the effort has to reach beyond the K–12 grades and continue into higher education and to the wider community.
iCivics recorded the forum and posted it on YouTube.