Civic education is full of nostalgia. Horace Mann, John Dewey, and the post-WWII era often come up in conversations about the current state of affairs. Judge Marjorie Rendell knows this well because she grew up in the postwar era and understand how different today's civic education is from what she received as a young student. She saw it firsthand when she visited classrooms across Pennsylvania during her eight years as the state's First Lady and decided to do something about it when she left the role.
Today, the Rendell Center for Civics and Civic Engagement conducts mock trials, read-alouds, and other activities designed to transform civic education from something dry and boring into something exciting for elementary and middle school students. The center also has an eye to the future and are exploring how graphic novels and AI can help their work moving forward.
Rendell joins us to talk about the center's work and her current role as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. We discuss what it's like to be a federal judge in the current political climate ,and the role that judges and lawyers can play in helping students learn about the Constitution.
The Rendell Center for Civics and Civic Engagement received the McCourtney Institute for Democracy's 2025 Brown Democracy Medal.
Episode Transcript
Chris Beem
From the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University. I'm Chris Beem.
Candis Watts Smith
I'm Candis Watts Smith.
Jenna Spinelle
I'm Jenna Spinelle, and welcome to Democracy. Works this week we are talking about civic education, and joining us for this conversation is Judge Marjorie Rendell. You'll hear me call her Midge in the interview. She is the co founder of the Rendell Cnter for Civics and Civic Engagement and a federal judge. And we talk a lot about how those two things intersect, the role that she sees lawyers and judges playing in civic education, as well as all the things that the Rendell Center is doing across Pennsylvania to help students understand the Constitution and what it means to live in a democracy.
Chris Beem
I mean, they're the Brown Democracy award winner, and it is, it is not an accident that they won this year, right? We all are all too aware of our immediate problem. You know, you wake up every morning and it's like, wow, it just got worse. I didn't think it get worse, but it did, and it's one damn thing after another, and we have talked about it, and we'll continue to do so, but we have a long term problem as well, and we need to attend to the condition of our democracy, in the broad sense that the title of the Book is a republic, if we can, if you can teach it, which is, of course, a takeoff on the Benjamin Franklin line, but it's, I think it's a really good way of framing, right? You don't just, we just assume things about adults. We assume knowledge, we assume interest, we assume a concern for their role as citizens, and I don't know that we that we do enough to make that happen. Other thing was education, if you are going to be responsible for the you know who gets elected and what laws are passed, ultimately, as as part of the people, then you need to know things. You need to know how to read a paper. You need to know how to assess an argument. You don't have to be like us, ridiculously over educated and over the top, but you do have to have some basic abilities, and so from the beginning, the founders were worried about establishing education, and part of that was civics. Anyway. Candace, what do you think about that?
Candis Watts Smith
So a couple of things. One is that to your earlier point about the situation that we're in right now is that sometimes I feel like we're living in upside downland, insofar as I mean, insofar as what is actually in the news. But as an educator, I spend a lot of time talking to my students about how to think critically about our institutions. And, you know, like, Okay, we have this document. Where are the gaps? You know, what are things that could be better? Or, you know, what are our you know, hypocrisies, and what are the good things? And I now find myself in a situation where I feel like, before we do that I had assumed, and I now know that I should not have that there, that there has to be like. The first step has to be about appreciation of what the government does. I think you know, one of the things that you mentioned earlier is that people care so little about their roles as citizens. I also think they do not understand what the government is supposed to do, or could do, or does the time that they wake up, you know, like that sticker on your mattress about, like fire, like flammability, you know, whatever you know, like the toothpaste that you use has to go through certain regulations. There's all these things that I think I had just kind of set aside because I assume that we all understood that part, and so now we can get into the nitty gritty, but I see now how important it is for us to take a step back and to have a full appreciation for the complexities and, you know, the nuances. And the flaws and the possibilities in a way that we hadn't before. I think that's one of the reasons why people seem so willing to just burn it all down.
Chris Beem
The other thing I heard you say was this kind of look. You're right. There's nothing like dillic about you know, our society 50 years ago, but, you know, I'm older than both of you. And you know, granted, it was Nebraska, but, but it was, but it was still the chase that, you know, we had to take a civic class. And in our civics class, we didn't just learn about, you know, checks and balances, three branches, whatever. I remember, we watched a documentary about life in the inner city. Now, again, you know, I think there were six, you know, African Americans in my high school, and it was 750 in the graduating class, right? It was not very many, but the point is, he set that up for us to discuss and to argue, and because of that, all of us were better prepared for the role of citizen. And, you know, yes, this is a much different time. Yes, we should, you know, move on from that kind of everybody read the newspaper, everybody watched the three networks, everybody went to church on Sunday, and everybody had a civics class, fine. But the idea that those mechanisms did not have valuable and indeed, I would argue, essential benefits for our society, I think is just wrong,
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, and that's really the challenge that the Rendell center and their peers in the civic education space are grappling with. And we talk in the interview about how to avoid that trap of nostalgia when you spend a lot of time talking about Horace Mann and Benjamin Franklin and these figures from the past, and I think Judge Rendell is very aware of that and doing the best that they can to make a mark in the climate that we find ourselves In. So let's hear now from Judge Marjorie Rendell,
Midge Rendell, welcome to Democracy Works. Thanks for joining us today.
Midge Rendell
Thank you. Jenna, delightful to be here.
Jenna Spinelle
So very excited to talk with you about your work at the Rendell Center for Civics and Civic Engagement. But before we get into that, I wanted to maybe start by asking you about your own civic education. I know you grew up in the post war era, not to date you by any means. But you know, a lot of people consider that to be a golden age of civic pride, civic participation, civic engagement. So what was that like for you in the school setting?
Midge Rendell
Yeah, we had civics when I was a youngster. I can remember it was almost like a catechism. It was a booklet the three branches of government. You know, how old does the President have to be? All of these things we learned. I learned as a child, when I was eight and nine years old, and then in high school, I was active in civic activities, and it was really a part of who you were, how you grew in your community and your family, and, you know, we missed that, but it was really wonderful. And I think my generation votes a lot more than other generations, because we did have that. But for the last I'd say five decades or so, it's gone to the wayside.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, when do you think it? Has it been, in your view, a gradual decline, or are there sort of inflection points along the way when you think things really changed?
Midge Rendell
Well, it was gradual. I'd say the end of the 1990s let's say but then No Child Left Behind brought in a lot of requirements for math and literacy and social studies really got pushed to the side because the teachers had to teach to the test, and if they wanted to do civics, they had to find time that wasn't necessarily there. So I think it was a difficult time, and to this day, I talked to superintendents and principals about making time, but it's not something that they feel comfortable pushing down into the classroom. The teachers are so challenged, so it's tough. We have to fight to find a way to get it into the classroom. And we've chosen to do it, by and large, through through literacy, which is something that they are teaching. Thank goodness.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, say more about about what you mean by that. How do you define literacy in this context?
Midge Rendell
Well, we are doing a lot of mock trials based upon works of literature to be kind of basic was Goldilocks guilty of criminal trespass when she entered in the home of the three bears. And you know, other other books of literature that the students are reading, so the teachers are coming to us for the mock trial to develop a better. Better comprehension to go deeper with the content and the understanding of the book. So we found our way into the classroom, largely in that way. And we have another program called the citizenship challenge, where the students write a class essay on a topic. Our first one was, should the amend the constitution be changed so that the President need not be a natural born citizen? And, you know, writing of an essay is good. The children are researching using primary documents, and, you know, in enhancing their knowledge of these things, but at the same time writing, so writing is important. So we found a way to get into the classroom without doing something that isn't a curriculum add on, if you will. So we're having fun with it, and the teachers are welcoming what we're doing. When we first started out, we developed curriculum, but the teachers weren't about to pick it up, because they're already teaching, and they're not about to put something else in. So we had to kind of be creative to find something that that would work.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, so let's, let's take a step back talk about the founding of the center, and maybe even before that. You know, when you went back into the classroom as first lady of Pennsylvania, what what did you see in comparing that to what we were talking about earlier, with your own experience of civic education.
Midge Rendell
Well, it's interesting. I I'm going to mention in the award ceremony this afternoon, when I first became a judge, I supervise, or oversaw, a naturalization ceremony on the lawn behind Independence Hall, and I just looked out on these new citizens, and I said to myself, look at the joy in their faces. They know that our country and our form of government provides the opportunity, the freedom they left their countries to come here. And you know, our natural born citizens really don't realize how amazing our country is. And it just inspired me to want to spread the word of how great, how great our government is. I mean the separation of powers, the thought that went into the formation of our government. I'm teaching a workshop next week at the Community College of Philadelphia. It's an adult civic workshop, and in preparation for that, I ordered the expanded version of the Federalist Papers. It is an inch thick, single space document with the most amazing, thought provoking essays by Hamilton and Madison and Jay. And you think, my goodness, what? What brought our country to where it is at the thought of these people. And you read the Constitution, and it's an amazing document. So I really got inspired by the naturalization ceremony. And then when Ed was governor, I decided as First Lady, I was a federal judge. At the time, I couldn't take up any real causes, social causes or policy matters. But you know what's wrong with civics education? You know that was something that I really could do and and that I really understood as it as a judge, I worked with the Constitution Day in and day out. So we worked, we formed the Pennsylvania Coalition for representative democracy when I was first lady, and I went around the Commonwealth between 2003 and 2011 talking about it. What's interesting is I, I first had to make people realize it was important, and that was a challenge. But as we get closer to this era, people are realizing it is important. So many aspects of our government people don't understand, and they don't know where to turn. So we've become a more popular resource than ever, because I that first issue of, why is it important people are getting it. We formed the Rendell Center in 2014 to embark upon educating the next generation of citizens. And we've been doing it for 11 years now, and really very pleased. The difficulty is in having impact, in spreading the word. There's so much fight for people's time, and people don't know where to turn. So even today, we were asking students if they had heard about the Rendell center, and they hadn't. You know, we don't, and you know, if we don't market or whatever, we depend upon the word of mouth, but when we can get people's attention, it's popular. And we, you know, we are being promoted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center. We're a partner of theirs, so we get the word out in that way. But it's been a great journey.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, the other thing that I come up against when I think about this is so much of it is, you know, you can conjure Horace Mann and John Dewey and all these thinkers from 100 years ago. And so how do you and even thinking about the experience that that you had, like, how do you prevent it from becoming a nostalgia trap? Or, just like, we're trying to reclaim something that once was, no matter how far back you want to take it.
Midge Rendell
But I think it's important to realize what once was, I mean, part of the public school system in our country was founded so that people could learn to be citizens and learn about their government. That was, like a number one reason that Dewey cited, and we shouldn't lose sight of that. Fact, it may be nostalgic, but we need to bring it to the to the front burner. But I think there's, there's such a lack of knowledge, such a basic lack actually, as part of this workshop next week, I'm giving the students, they're adults, I'd say the average age is probably around 50. We'll probably have 40 in the class, and as they come in, I'm giving them a copy of the declaration and constitution, a booklet. And then I'm giving each one of them an index card with the power one of the powers set forth in the Constitution, the treaty power, declare war, you know, coin money, have a navy, etc, and I'm, I'm putting sections up on the blackboard and having them come up and figure out which branch of government has this power, and they don't know. But when you see it, it's kind of, it's very interesting. So I think you have to start with the basics and and make people, everyday people realize, oh, we really don't know we really don't know it. And interestingly, when we gave this workshop before, the students wanted more reading material. They wanted to be able, on their own, to read about it. So I'm actually getting every student a copy of Sandra Day O'Connor's book, the majesty of the law, which has a lot of information about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the formation of state and federal courts, a lot of influential Americans, presidents and judges, and it's just a good basic layman's primer, if you will, but the students wanted to know. They wanted more, which is a good sign.
Jenna Spinelle
I was intrigued to hear you say both now and earlier today, when you were visiting with some Penn State classes about the read alouds and bringing these different figures into the classroom. And I mean, certainly there's what they're gaining from the books and the stories that they're reading, but I think there's also some other benefits. Just because students might not have ever seen a judge or a firefighter or police officer or any of these other folks.
Midge Rendell
It's true. And I have some testimonials from the teachers. You know, when a veteran comes in on Veterans Day and reads a book and talks to the children about their service. It really means something when we have people like that come into the classroom and they don't have to be there, they're volunteering to teach the kids, I think it makes it a huge impact. And I like to tell people that at the Rendell center, we use a lot of lawyers and judges, and they love it. They want the opportunity to come in on Constitution Day and educate and you can call the County Bar Association or the Pennsylvania Bar Association, or call a court, state court or federal court and say, I'd like a judge or lawyer to come into my classroom on Bill of Rights Day, on Constitution Day, Veterans Day, and we're only no one's going to turn you down if they're going to be anxious to come in. And that's what in our court. We have a courts and community committee to kind of get the court out into the community and bring the community into the court. And I think at the Rendell center, we're really doing that and pushing that and and I hope teachers get the message. It's, it's tough to get the attention of teachers. They're so busy and they're so burdened with so many things, they have to do that for them to think, gee, I can get a lawyer to come in, you know? But that's, that's the message that we're trying to send, and that the Rendell center sends, especially with these read aloud from getting judges, lawyers, people into the classroom.
Jenna Spinelle
And you know, as things have become more and more politicized in the schools, have you seen any an increase in hesitancy or the thought of, I don't even want to touch anything that even smells of politics in my classroom?
Midge Rendell
Yeah, there is some hesitance on the part of some teachers to do that, for fear that who knows somebody might take it wrong, or even though what we're doing is innocent, there is that risk. But by and large, the teachers who have us in are understanding that we know how to do it. We know how to keep it very factual. And, you know, it hasn't yet become a real problem, but, but you can imagine that teaching civics today isn't easy, and that's why get get the lawyer, get the judge to come in. They know the facts. They know what the Constitution says. They don't have to say what what people. Think so. You know, having someone in there who deals with the Constitution Day in, day out, makes it easier for for the teacher to do.
Jenna Spinelle
I think, yeah, and there's also something to I think I can, I can envision a scenario where an angry parent would call up a teacher to complain about a classroom activity, but calling a judge, calling a lawyer, that seems much more intimidating than than calling up your kid's teacher. In some way.
Midge Rendell
If you want to call the teacher for what the judge said, the teacher could say, I'm sorry, but the judge said that, and I wasn't about to contradict her. So, yeah, yes, yeah. Gives you an excuse, I think, yeah. But most of what we teach is, is, is factual. This is what the Constitution says. Or this, this book. And we try to have books that are, you know, fairly bland, but, but teach a civic lesson. And there can be discussion points that aren't lightning rods for for, you know, political views, but we try, we try to be careful. We know, we know it can be an issue.
Jenna Spinelle
And on that point about the books, how do you think about civic and civic education in the broader culture, like, you know, Schoolhouse Rock was before my time, but I know it was influential for some. I certainly watched a lot of Mr. Rogers growing up. I think he modeled what being a small d democratic citizen was like. But today, you know, I don't have kids, but I understand that a lot of what they consume is called Brain rot, right? Or that's what they call the content that they watch on Tiktok or YouTube or what have you. So it seems like that's also an uphill battle. And I wonder if you think at all about how, whether it's your work or the work our partners, can sort of get in that cultural space.
Midge Rendell
Well, Sandra Day O'Connor started a project called iCivics many years ago, and it's games, and kids can go on the website and play games that have civic content, and you know information about the judiciary, etc. So that's that's really terrific. And for the 250th we at the Rendell Center are putting together mock trials based on history. Should Betsy Ross be persecuted or prosecuted, I should say, for treason, for making the American flag that you know was carried on the battlefield, et cetera, et cetera. And we're finding that the use of AI and to do depictions of characters that we want to put into these mock trials is really kind of cool. You know, we have, we have stories, but we can also put a picture of the prosecutor, just, you know, it's not really the prosecutor, but you have a picture. And for AI, make, make a picture of Betsy Ross being on the witness stand. Okay, there we go. Do that, and you can come up with these graphics. And we're thinking of doing some graphic novels that would be a little more, you know, appealing to the younger generation. So I think with the advent of AI, I mean, the content is our content, we're not letting AI develop the content, but with the depictions and, you know, just making it interesting, there's a there's a lot to be done, but, but that is a challenge. I mean, as you walk through, you know, serves college campus, everybody's on their phone when we need to get something on the phone that they want to watch, that they want to see. And I'm not sure if we're totally there, but think the graphic novels is a start.
Jenna Spinelle
And I know that the the citizenship challenge is another program that I kind of get students engaged in in a different way, tell me about that.
Midge Rendell
It's a it's an essay project that's open to fourth and fifth grade classes. It's a class essay. The idea is for them to work as a team. We pose an issue this year. It is whether the colonists were guilty of treason in fomenting the revolution. Because it's very timely for the 250th anniversary of the declaration, and the students will take a side, yes or no. Research it. Look at Common Sense by Thomas Paine. Look at what's going on at the time look at whether was this justified or not. And they work as a class, they come up with an essay. We usually get over 200 class essays all across the Commonwealth, Johnstown, Pittsburgh, all across the top 10 are selected and go to the National Constitution Center, where they perform a skit about their their essay. And the first one we had was whether the constant, did I mention this constitution needs to be amended so that the President doesn't need to be a natural born citizen? Well, at the end of their skit, they played Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA, so which was very topical, so that the kids are very creative, and we just love it. The governor, Ed Rendel, just absolutely loves it. The parents come, the teachers come. I invariably am crying by the end because the kids are so excited. And last year, the Philly fanatic came and helped us present the chicks checks. We give $1,000.05 $100 to the top winners, and they get so very. Excited, and they're excited about learning about the Constitution. Yeah, we're gonna be better than that.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, you know, I I bet you would have at least a running shot of getting Springsteen to come. Now, maybe the students wouldn't actually know who he was, but some of the teachers and the parents might be, might be excited.
Midge Rendell
I mean, we thought we were great getting the fanatic or Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi's a Big Ben Franklin fan. Maybe we can get Jon, Bon Jovi to come but, yeah, it's, it's, it's really, it's really fun, and they don't forget it. We got a letter from a ninth grade student talking about the impact that it had on him. He was talking about how this non sports competition brought him, you know, a skill set that he'd never, never used before. He had to answer. After they do the skits, they answer questions from the judges, and they're standing on their feet answering a question about their essay, and they have to think on their feet. He said, nobody ever asked me what I thought about something before. So it's making an impact. It really is.
Jenna Spinelle
So we're coming to the end of our time here. But I do just want to ask you, since I do have a federal judge here, just if you could just talk a bit about the role that judges, especially federal judges, are playing in our democracy right now, and how that maybe has has evolved. I mean, to my mind, there's never been as many clashes between the judiciary and the executive as there are right now, but you're the expert here.
Midge Rendell
Well, the Constitution has a separation of powers. There are certain powers delegated to the president, certain powers delegated to Congress. There are certain statutes that control where money is supposed to go, and to the extent that a plaintiff believes that this hasn't been we haven't been abiding by that, they bring an action in federal court saying this violates the Constitution, or this violates a statute or this is not a power that somebody has. And the courts are deciding these issues. They're hearing argument, they're taking evidence, and they're they're coming up with reasoned conclusions, and a lot of them have been declaring a lot of executive orders to violate the Constitution or to violate congressionally authorized statute or a grant. But you know, the justice system works slowly, and they have to wend their way through the courts. Several of them are in front of appeals courts right now. None of them that I know of or before my court may be in front of a panel that I don't know about, but it takes time, and ultimately, the appeals courts will or won't agree. I think in one instance, the First Circuit did agree with the district court in Massachusetts, so it'll wend its way to the Supreme Court. And pending these, the Supreme Court has stayed a number of them, which, you know, I won't comment on whether I think that that was, you know, proper or not, but it's, it's a challenging time. But our judicial system is not the instant situation that an executive order is, an executive order gets, gets signed, boom, that's the law. Supposedly, it's supposed to be the law and then someone brings a case in court, and it gets argued, and there's evidence, and it takes time. So we don't know, you know, we're only, you know, several months into the administration that's making more use of executive orders. I mean, no doubt about executive orders have been the norm. Congressional action has not been executive orders have been for, you know, 20 years, perhaps. And you know, both political parties, but they're instantaneous, and when someone challenges them, it's like a slog. It takes time. So we'll see, we'll see how it all plays out. But I think the judges are doing their role. We're we take evidence. You know, the trial court takes evidence, and someone asked for an injunction. There are standards for the injunction. The judge decides whether it meets those standards. Appeals Court might disagree, but injunctions are being are being entered because the district courts have said, by doing what judges do. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago about the insubordination of judges. And to my mind, I think the district courts have been doing their job. I think there was one district court judge which I think entered an order after the Supreme Court had entered a stay. I think it was out of frustration. But, you know, I see what judges do. When I went on the bench, I couldn't believe how faithfully judges want to get it right. And to this day, and I have a court on which I think we're equally divided politically, if you would say politically, but we all adhere to precedent. We all adhere to the precedent that has been handed down, and if that precedent dictates X or. Why that's what we follow. Supreme Court's different. They might say precedent doesn't apply. They get the puzzles. They get the cases that might be out on the edges, but very much. And Sam Alito said when he was being confirmed for Supreme Court that 96% of the cases he heard when he was on the court of appeals were controlled by precedent. So I don't think our district courts are doing anything other than what they always do, what they always do.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, do you think that there's in the, in the in the press you hear that there's, you know, certain cases are bringing are being brought up at the time they're brought up because they want to get them in front of the Supreme Court, whoever is bringing the case, whether it's usually some kind of controversial issue, like, you know, religious freedom or reproductive rights or all those kinds of things. But I guess I wonder, like, in some ways, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, but you know, appeals courts are like, the last line of defense before something gets to the Supreme Court. So do you feel like there's more more pressure now with these cases that are really like, overtly, that's the goal, is to get this bigger issue in front of the Supreme Court.
Midge Rendell
I don't know the motivation of people coming to the courts. I think we are seeing more current event type of things coming into the courts, because there's a lot of conversation, and there's a lot of discussion. I mean, you know, as well as I do, there's a lot going on out there. There's a lot of people with a lot of different views, and if they have different views and they want it, you know, want somebody to say something about it, they'll come into the court. So I do think the the litigiousness of current events in our courts is much greater than it was a dozen years I mean, there's no doubt about it. People have strong feelings, and those strong feelings lead to, I want my rights declared. So the place you declare them is come into court. So I think you do see it. I don't know the motives of getting before the Supreme Court or such, but it's, it's as it has always been, that somebody wants a recognition of their right. It's just people feel very, very strongly about their rights these days.
Jenna Spinelle
And I wonder if going all the way back to where we started and civic education, you think that there's like people feel more strongly about these things, because in some ways, they don't have as much of a solid understanding of what those those rights are like you you go on feelings when you don't have facts, in some ways, yeah, well, I mean, I was alive during the era of, you know, Reagan era, and Bush and Clinton.
Midge Rendell
We were a little more ho hum about Our rights back then. You know when the somebody says it so it must be. So we didn't have the we weren't pitted against each other in the same ways. I mean, look at, look at the Senate. They used to work across the aisle and get things done. And government in our Congress was governing. It was passing laws. And, I mean, you look at the great legislation of the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, the crime bill of Clinton, you know, Johnson's, you know, civil rights and things, things got done in Congress and people, they elected their representatives to do that, to go and govern, just in a different we're in a different climate now. We really are.
Jenna Spinelle
And do you see, like, I guess, what role do you see civic education playing in perhaps changing that climate?
Midge Rendell
Well, if we could get the facts out through civics education, I think there would be less litigation because I think people would know who has what power. People would read and understand. People would see there's a statute that says x and that does or doesn't apply. I mean, a lot of the litigation is being brought over matters that district courts have found fairly clearly. It either does or doesn't fit. It either does or doesn't fit on the Constitution, or does or doesn't fit under a treaty or a statute, because it's pretty clear. So I think if we had more civics education, then I think knowledge would overcome a lot of the the things that we see in the courts. People would understand, well, I'm I'm not going to bring that suit because I see this, and that means, you know, I'm probably going to lose, or maybe I'm going to win, but I think knowledge would would correct a lot of what we see that seems to be emotion. And I'm not saying on one side or the other, there's an emotion on both sides. And if they were to just sit back and relax and read a little bit more, they might say, Oh, well, I'm not, not happy. It is that way. But, you know, if I want to change, I better go to Congress. Yeah, you know, yeah. And that's, you know, that's more of a personal view. But. I do think the knowledge of the Constitution is where you start really well.
Jenna Spinelle
I think that is a fantastic place to end. We'll link to the Rendell center and everything that you all are doing in the show notes and Judge Rendell, thanks for your time today.
Midge Rendell
Thank you for the McCourtney Center for Democracy at Penn State. It. It's doing great work. We really appreciate it.
Candis Watts Smith
Thank you, Jenna and Judge Rendell for a really great discussion about the work that the age is doing with her center and I. One of the things, there are many things that stood out to me about the conversation. One of the things that you know, again, as an educator, we want to meet people where they are. And you know, there is a concerted effort to meet both adults and children where they are. Mean, you know, I often show student, you know, my own students YouTube videos where average citizens are asked questions about that are from the US citizenship test, and people cannot answer these questions. And, you know, of course, there's, like, you know, a little comedy lace in people give kind of off the wall answers. But the fact of the matter is that it's not okay. It's not okay. So you know for folks, for them to think through, okay, well, how can we reach people in what ways like, where are they? We know that people are busy. We know that teachers already have, you know, a bunch of things that they already have to do, and to try to think creatively about how to get in, where you can fit in, build a strong foundation for adults, while at the same time, You know finding adults, you know where they are, but then also that the principles that are taught for both adults and children are different, the medium and the mode might be different. And so I really just appreciate that and applaud that effort to encapsulate so many touch, so many audiences.
Chris Beem
Yeah, I agree with that. I actually think that it's another thing that is true and that risks a sense of nostalgia, is that adults, a generation or two ago, had a stronger sense of responsibility for the how children were raised and how we had we adults had A sense of responsibility how we how we were modeling the right behavior for them. And again, I don't want to go back necessarily, but I don't want to to ignore the importance of that and and how it matters for young people. The other thing is just this. I mean, community is a hard nut right now, and when you bring adults and children who don't necessarily know each other, you're building that community. You're building that sense of in some meaningful, abstract way. We are all in this together, and we don't do that enough.
Candis Watts Smith
I'm sorry, Chris, there's something that you said that stood out to me. And I'm like, is this a childhood trauma? I don't think that that's true all the way that there is, you know, an era of time when parents modeled certain kinds of behavior, because most of us, I think, from my generation up, were let loose on you get home from school and you get on your bike and you show back up in the evenings. Now I just gonna, I want to just put that aside. I do think, though, that there was a difference in orientation around the questions that were being answered in public schools. I think that that we could agree on, and we can see that traced and curriculums over time, and what's there and what's not there, and the fact that civics is being kind of sidelined as if it were mutually exclusive from literacy, from reading and even from math, or from history, obviously and certainly from history.
Chris Beem
But the Rendell Center came into this saw this reality and figured. Figured out how to deal with it, instead of just, you know, you know, clutching the pearls or wringing their hands about the fact that civics wasn't part of the curriculum, they said, well, literacy is part of the curriculum. Let's go there. Let's work there to do, to invest civics and the moment where I thought, yeah, this could be the brown medal winner was when they, when I read that they used Lily's purple plastic purse as a as a means of investing civics and moral dialog into a fourth graders conversation, or whatever it was, maybe first grade. I had read that book 100 times, right? And I never thought about that. I mean, you know, with my own kids, I guess I should say that, but, but once I thought about that, I'm like, That is a great idea. That's a great idea, and by by moving into what is already there, I think the Rendell Center has made a really brilliant and effective strategic decision.
Candis Watts Smith
One of the other pedagogical strategies that I think is likely to be effective is what we call embodied learning, and that's when you step into the shoes of somebody else, or you role play, or you, you know, you use your body to play out particular scenarios you get into it. And so, you know, they talk about, you know, doing mock trials, and, you know that kind of stuff, where you just, you you have to, there's like an empathy building there, right? Because you might be in a position of a person that you actually do not agree with, and playing that out and thinking through, well, why would they do it this way? Is something that most people don't do, and it's not that often of an opportunity that you get prompted to do that. And so, you know, I think that that is a practice that builds skills, but also says, like, what's the best opposing argument, right? And really engaging into it, instead of this kind of gotcha debate that we find ourselves, that we see a lot of elites modeling instead of, you know, true engagement on the ideas. I think the other kind of way that we have experiential learning and embodied learning for adults is doing democracy right. You know, when you get your jury summons instead of, like, lamenting it, you know, you go for it. Because people who do that often feel like, oh, I have a better understanding of how the system works. And so these opportunities for young folks and children to try on these things early and to learn the skills necessary to discern, to compare, to evaluate the information that's being put in front of them, to have civil discourse with someone who disagrees with them, or to evaluate whether that person is out of the boundaries of, you know, potentially out of the boundaries of of productive dialog. I think that's maybe a way of saying that. I mean, that's a I think that's a very nuanced skill, but these are the kinds of things that are needed, especially now, more than any other time, I think the work that is being done around here, given these many landmines, barriers that folks have to navigate.
Chris Beem
And you know, in a world where not only is are all those skills of civic disagreement almost absent in our society now, but AI is looming. You know, fake videos are looming if they're not already here. How do we deal with this? We don't we're not thinking about this. We're not creative. But if we are going to sustain our democracy, if we're going to sustain ourselves as a well ordered democracy, we simply have no choice, and we have to accept that these are goals. Goals that we need to take seriously. And I think that's why the Rendell center is such a good thing for us to be aware of. And the book will be out in about a month. And I encourage everybody to to get it and read it. It's a the brown metal books are always short but but it does give you a sense of not just affirming those goals, but also thinking strategically about how we engage them, how we seek to achieve them in the age in which we find ourselves so for democracy. I'm Chris Beem.
Candis Watts Smith
I'm Candis Watts Smith, thanks for listening.