Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 2/8/2022
EASTHAMPTON – For a fifth straight year, the Easthampton High School We the People team has won the state championship and will be moving on to the National Tournament in Washington D.C. this April.
We the People is a curriculum and program that is offered by the Massachusetts Center for Civic Education, a private, nonprofit, non-partisan organization that promotes civic education in public and private schools and communities.
Open to juniors and seniors, the course focuses on learning about the American constitution and governance from its philosophical origins to modern application. The course is divided into six units where students learn about different aspects of the constitution and government studied throughout the semester. At the end of each unit, classes go through an authentic type of assessment where they participate in a mock congressional hearing.
This is ultimately what the competition itself is when Easthampton High School matches up against other schools in the state, and they’ve shown great success over the years. Kelley Brown, a social studies teacher at Easthampton High, has been leading the charge as the head of the We the People team every year of its existence at the school.
Starting 10 years ago, Brown began teaching the We the People course and has seen her students win the state title six of their nine years in the competition, including the last five. As the leader for young students in this program over the years, Brown has been a part of a very successful and beneficial run for her students. She credits the schools success to a few different factors.
“I think that because of the authentic nature of the course, where students are interacting with the community and they’re talking about things that actually matter in their own lives and in their own futures, that students are much more interested in really engaging deeply and developing expertise in these areas,” Brown said.
She also credits the competitive nature from competing against other schools as something students get motivated for. In preparation for the competition, Brown says she brings questions to teams of usually three students and allows them to prepare a four-minute statement on the question. The goal is for students to use information learned from the unit and bring it forth in their statement and discussion about a question presented during the mock congressional hearing. This is how each unit is assessed, and what the competition itself is.
Once the second half of the school year begins focus goes toward the competition itself. Grouping in teams of three, each group has a unit that has already been studied and they have three questions on it that they have to prepare a four minute statement for on each question. A few examples of a prompted questions, shared by Brown, that are being studied by students now were, “What are the philosophical and historical foundations of the American political system,” “How did the Framers Create the Constitution” and “How has the constitution been changed to further the ideals contained in the declaration of independence?” This is done in front of judges across the state and teams are assessed on their ability to demonstrate the knowledge from the units.
With their most recent state title, the Easthampton High We the People team is now moving toward another National Championship. Having previously won it all in 2020, they will return to Washington D.C. from April 23 to 25 to compete in this years competition.
“It’s very exciting and the same process sort of happens over again. Students get new research questions that are a bit more difficult, so right now we’re just starting our research phase of trying to figure out what we need to learn in order to be able to answer those questions,” Brown said.
Students who compete are limited to just one year in the program as it also serves as a course in the curriculum. Because of this, the Easthampton team sees new participants every year. While students are limited to one go at it, the school has built relationships that has past competitors for Easthampton coming back and helping new students prepare for the competition.
“What happens often is students who have done it in the past, they’re really excited and eager to come back and help the next year’s team. So really, I have a community of people that help to make this program happen,” Brown said.
She added that she has two volunteers that frequent class discussion that are both lawyers, as well as mentors from previous years that help students regularly including college students coming home for holiday break.
“They work with students on questioning and on helping them to learn the key ideas that they really need to know,” Brown said. “Every year we become stronger as a program because we get a whole new team of young people who want to engage and come back and participate and so just the breadth of knowledge that we have as a whole I think is really important.”
Brown said she has learned so much over her time teaching and leading the We the People program at the high school and feels that like her students, develops and learns deep expertise of these subjects that she never knew before. With the amount of time put into helping her students succeed, she sees them grow and how much they learn and are proud of the work they do.
“That to me, is really motivating and I think it also helps motivate them because they know that I’m going to work hard to help them get where they need to be,” Brown said. “It matters, you know, to them it matters. It to me. It matters that they learn about their community and their government and how it works. What values that we share as a country especially in a time that’s so divided.”
Brown added that as part of the course she is focused on teaching civil discourse in a time where the political climate is currently divisive and to teach students how to respectfully debate and discuss things with those with differing opinions.
“One of the things really central to the program is civil discourse and helping students treat people with whom they disagree as like any other rational human beings and having civil discourse and disciplined thinking and reasoning that they’re not just speaking out of passion but they’re actually thinking before they speak and they’re trying to think from a place of reason and evidence, and not simply a place of passion.”
As they move on to their goal of another national championship, Brown and her students past and present can reflect on what they have accomplished to this point. She says that her time spent in this program has shown her that the interest of students may not be there for this subject, but it is created and grown through students learning.
“I have very few students walk through my door like, ‘I love the constitution, I can’t wait to be here,’ but when they leave, they are so passionate because they have developed such an expertise and they have learned so much about these things. They develop a passion and a love for it and an appreciation for it that’s just really fun to see,” Brown said.
Fundraising for the trip has yet to officially begin, but Brown did say a GoFundMe page will be established for students and each student will participate in a 22 and 22 campaign. The campaign’s goal is for students to find 22 people to donate $22 each in helping raise funds for students. Brown added they are still in the planning stages of some type of large scale event to fundraise.