Civics In A Year
What do you really know about American government, the Constitution, and your rights as a citizen?
Civics in a Year is a fast-paced podcast series that delivers essential civic knowledge in just 10 minutes per episode. Over the course of a year, we’ll explore 250 key questions—from the founding documents and branches of government to civil liberties, elections, and public participation.
Rooted in the Civic Literacy Curriculum from the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University, this series is a collaborative project supported by the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. Each episode is designed to spark curiosity, strengthen constitutional understanding, and encourage active citizenship.
Whether you're a student, educator, or lifelong learner, Civics in a Year will guide you through the building blocks of American democracy—one question at a time.
Civics In A Year
How Tinker v. Des Moines Empowered Student Speech
A simple black armband became a turning point for student rights. We sit down with Mary Beth Tinker to revisit the 1965 protest that led to Tinker v. Des Moines and the Supreme Court’s declaration that students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate. Alongside Mary Beth, Pennsylvania civic educator Shannon Salter brings the story into today’s classrooms, where free speech collides with dress codes, book bans, social media, and the daily realities of learning in community.
Across this conversation, we unpack what the First Amendment means for young people right now: the boundary between speech and disruption, the often overlooked right to hear, and the difference between adult comfort and student liberty. Shannon shares field-tested strategies for elevating student voice—protocols that reward listening over winning, projects that connect learning to local impact, and governance roles that let students help shape their schools. Mary Beth ties civic courage to well-being, showing how advocacy builds confidence, connection, and care. Together, we trace how youth voice has moved city services, reoriented policy conversations, and kept democratic values visible in the places where they matter most.
If you’re an educator, student, or parent wondering how to hold space for hard conversations without losing the thread of learning, you’ll find practical tools and real stories here. If you’re curious why Tinker still matters more than five decades later, you’ll hear how every generation keeps rights alive by using them. Listen, share with someone who cares about student voice, and leave a review to help others find the show. Your feedback helps us keep building a community that protects speech, nurtures curiosity, and invites young people to lead.
Illinois Democracy Hub: Current and Societal Issue Discussion Toolkit<https://www.illinoiscivics.org/curriculum-toolkit/current-and-societal-issue-discussions/>
Sphere Education: Principles of Civil Discourse Primer<https://www.sphere-ed.org/publication/principles-civil-discourse-primer>
Civil Discourse<https://www.corwin.com/books/civil-discourse-279127?srsltid=AfmBOor9pzuJmefZ940fUOTWSkgWSuaFEOXhYWcA6G4qEHOVv831C9gO>, by Joe Schmidt and Nichelle Pinkney<https://www.sphere-ed.org/publication/principles-civil-discourse-primer><https://www.illinoiscivics.org/curriculum-toolkit/current-and-societal-issue-discussions/>
Mercatus Center Pluralist Lab Resources<https://www.mercatus.org/tags/pluralism-and-civil-exchange>, including documentary "Undivided"
Generation Citizen<https://www.generationcitizen.org/>
Bill of Rights Institute: My Impact Challenge?<https://billofrightsinstitute.org/my-impact-challenge?gad_source=1&gad_camp
Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum!
School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership
Okay. Welcome back to the Arizona Cent. Or nope, wrong. See, I already have to start over again. Thank you for modeling that for us, Liz. Again, there's like 10,000 things happening. So I have to remember which podcast I'm doing. Welcome back to the Civics in a Year podcast. I am so stoked for today's episode. Today's Supreme Court case, we are talking about Tinker versus Des Moines. And we actually are doing this one a little bit differently. So today we're joined by someone whose courage as a young person helped reshape the constitutional rights of millions of students around the country. Mary Beth Tinker was just 13 years old when she wore a black armband to school to protest the Vietnam War, an act that led to a suspension, a lawsuit, and ultimately a landmark Supreme Court decision. In Tinker versus Des Moines, the court famously declared that students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gates, setting a lasting precedent for student free speech. Since then, Mary Beth has become a lifelong advocate for youth voice and civic engagement. And I do know this because she has come to Arizona and been part of some of our civic stuff. She's also traveled the country to inspire students to speak up, participate, and make change. We're honored to have her here with us today. We're also joined by an educator who works every day to bring that legacy of student voice to life in the classroom. Shannon Salter is a Pennsylvania civic educator, my civic bestie, and a statewide leader in strengthening civic learning. She is known for empowering students to understand their rights, engage in real-world issues, and see themselves as active citizens. Shannon's work has made her a respected advocate for student agency and meaningful civic education, helping young people connect to cases like Tinker to their own lives. I am beyond thrilled because Shannon, you are the very first teacher we're having on our podcast. So Shannon is here to share her perspective from the classroom and the broader civic landscape. So thank you both of you for being here with me today. Mary Beth, I'm going to start with you. What inspired you and your classmates to wear those black armbands back in 1965?
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much, Liz. It's so good to be with all of you talking about civics. And I'm so honored to be with Shannon as well, who has really exemplified an active teacher in her classroom and been a role model for so many students. Yes, what inspired us? Well, young people want to have a say about the things that affect their lives. And we felt very strongly about the Vietnam War. It really, we wore the armbands the first time a couple of years before then. The first time we did was in 1963 to mourn for the four little girls who were killed in Birmingham, Alabama, as part of the Birmingham Children's Crusade. When white supremacists bombed their headquarters there, the 16th Street Baptist Church, four little girls were murdered. And the writer James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin, a leader in the civil rights, they said we should wear black armbands to mourn for these girls who had been murdered and have services around the country. So that was the first time we heard about black armbands. And then when we, you know, the Vietnam War was building up and Freedom Summer was so important also in students' rights. Actually, it's because of Freedom Summer that the standard for free speech in public schools today was written. And I can talk about that later. But really the motivation came from all of that and also from growing up in the church. My father was a Methodist minister, and then our family later became Quakers. And my parents believed that we should put our values into action. So that's what we did. And they were very good examples of doing that in life. And I really tell the story a lot to honor them because they encouraged us to speak up and have a say about these things that affect us.
SPEAKER_02:So how did it feel for you to be suspended and suddenly part of this national conversation?
SPEAKER_00:The whole experience was crazy because we were mourning for the dead in Vietnam, including the soldiers and the Vietnamese, and supporting a Christmas truce that year, 1965, that had been called for by the North Vietnamese, and Senator Robert Kennedy was supporting it. And so we heard about that. And you know, people were sending little Christmas cards. It was around this time of year, and they would say, peace on earth. And us kids thought, yeah, why don't you adults try it sometime? Peace on earth. And what we were seeing instead was war, war, war, constant war, like now. Young people see so much war and so much of our resources and families have been sent to war over the years. And so we just thought we should speak up about that. And so that's how we decided to wear the black armbands again, not for the Birmingham children this time. This time it would be for the Vietnamese and for the soldiers, and to support the idea of the Christmas truce. So we had no idea that it was going to become a big deal and that we would still be talking about it, you know, all these years later. But I did learn that that's how history is usually made by the small actions of ordinary people. We were so ordinary, but the whole experience was was pretty crazy.
SPEAKER_02:So for you, what stands out from your experience taking the case to the Supreme Court?
SPEAKER_00:Well, a lot of it had to do with life going on and the ordinary things that we did, like you know, going roller skating on the weekends, and I would fight with my brother. I mean, just you know, we're such ordinary kids in so many ways. But it was extraordinary times, like now. And these are mighty times that we're in again now, and we're seeing so many young people speaking up now. But then you've got this personal level where you worry about your grades and classes and teachers and friends and all that, but then at the same time, there are these bigger issues going on. And for us, it was really racial justice issues and then the war. The war was escalating, and it's known as a war of atrocities, and we were seeing these horrible things on the news all the time, like kids see now in Gaza, and they want to do something about it. Kids naturally want to have a say about their lives, and so that's how we, you know, came to the point of wanting to speak up about all of this.
SPEAKER_02:So when the decision came down, did you at that point really grasp its long-term impact?
SPEAKER_00:No, I had no idea. And this was a group project, it wasn't like Mary Beth Tinker woke up one day and decided to wear a black armband. There had been 50 kids who were planning to wear the armbands. It was planned at Roosevelt High School, and there was also a group called Iowa Ones for Peace at that time. The the war was really just escalating then in 1965. But I had no idea that it was going to be such a big deal. Even when we won, I didn't realize the extent of it and that there were these things called landmark Supreme Court cases. I knew it was important, but I didn't know that it was going to be so important. One of the first times I realized how significant it was was when I was in nursing school because I became a nurse. I worked mostly with children and teenagers. I became a family nurse practitioner, I was a trauma nurse with children. And as a nurse, I kind of started putting it all together with the rights of kids and their conditions. But when I was in nursing school, the case was in my nursing book. So that was really crazy because I had no idea that it was so significant. And that's when I learned that, yeah, nurses, healthcare people learn about this, lawyers, teachers, principals learn about this because it has to do with kids' rights. And I started to see the case more in the context of kids' rights, even international children's rights, and also in the context of children's law. Because, of course, there's a whole lot of law that has to do with young people and children. And today, you know, this case has to do with the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment somewhat. But we could talk about all kinds of other laws that have to do with children and children's rights. And I know that a lot of teachers, you know, you have to study these things also, but that's when I really found out how significant it was when I became a nurse.
SPEAKER_02:That must have been a crazy experience to see your case and your nursing textbook.
SPEAKER_00:It really was.
SPEAKER_02:I just I like can't imagine opening that and seeing it. Um what do students today most often misunderstand about their First Amendment rights, do you think?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think students misunderstand that, first of all, these rights can be taken away, and they are every day taken away from students and disrespected. It's like a group of school board lawyers. I was speaking actually in Phoenix a while back to a national organization of school board lawyers, and they came up after me some of after the talk and said, Well, we like this case, it's good, but the thing is, a lot of legislators and school boards they don't really care about these cases and the rulings and the constitution, even they just want to get elected. So they can easily pass a rule at the school board or a law at the state legislature that violates the basic meaning of this ruling, which is that youth and teachers, because the Supreme Court added the word teachers in the ruling. The idea that teachers and students should have a say in their public schools, even when it is controversial, because Abe Fortas, who wrote the ruling, said some things are going to make us uncomfortable that we talk about. But that's a price we have to pay for education and for democracy. But now you're seeing so many rules passed by school boards and legislators that violate the basic idea of this ruling and say that no, that's too controversial. We're not going to allow that to be discussed in our schools, et cetera, et cetera. So I'd say that's the one of the things that students misunderstand is that in order to keep our rights, we have to know them and use them. And that's one thing I admire this podcast and your work there in Arizona, and also Shannon's work in Pennsylvania and the work of so many teachers around the country who are not only models for young people, but are doing that with their own lives, using their rights and keeping them. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:What advice would you give to a young person who wants to speak up for a cause?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'll tell you the same thing that I was telling some students last week in Florida when I was doing a Zoom call with the, you know, find think of the thing that you want to speak up about. And so many students have so many issues that are affecting them. I was just talking to some students where the dress code was their main thing. But these students in Florida, they had other issues. And I said, you know, find some students that agree with you or care about that issue also and join up with them. Maybe you can find some adult allies and you know, do some research, find out who's making the policies that affect that issue. And then you can think of some creative things that you can do to speak up about that issue. Maybe you can go to the legislature, maybe you can go to your school board, or you can have a club in school to take up, you know, a current event that you care about. There's climate action organizations, there's organizations for LGBTQ issues, there, whatever your issue is, there's probably already a group of young people working on that. So you may not have to invent a new group. Maybe you can join up with something that is already going on.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. So Shannon, I'm gonna switch over to you because you have so much experience in the classroom. What resonates most with your students when you teach Tinker versus Des Moines as a case?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, well, thank you so much for inviting me to be here today. And I'm gonna try to shift from the amazing fangirling I'm doing here because this case has been such an important part of my teaching my entire career. And here's why. I think the gift of this particular case is it's about students in school, right? It's so easy when we're teaching the fundamentals of government, the fundamentals of the court system for students to see government and history as something that happens to them as opposed to something that happens because of them, right? The constitution can feel like something that's, you know, so distant from them, their lives, their experience. It's something that might come up in their life later someday. But, you know, our students see and feel the Bill of Rights play out in their daily lives within the school building every single day. My students get searched every day when they walk into the building and have to go through metal detectors and that, you know, there's the Fourth Amendment showing up every time they enter the building. They live within a in a dress code, right? Issues of free speech related to how they're allowed to express themselves in their appearance. There are, and then increasingly today, they're surrounded by issues related to what they're allowed to read, what they're allowed to study, what they're allowed to discuss in class. And so, you know, this case is a gift to us as educators. So thank you, Mary Beth, for giving us curriculum. But it's such a gift because it allows us to place your rights right in the hands of students by giving them an example that's recent, that they can put themselves in Mary Beth's shoes and her classmates' shoes, and they can see how it applies to them today, and that those experiences are not so far removed from what they're experiencing every day.
SPEAKER_02:Shannon, how do you see student speech issues appearing in schools today? And I'm kind of including the online world here.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. And that's a big one. But you know, so but first of all, I'm gonna say that, you know, a trend that I'm loving in schools today is the increasing demand for student voice in the governance of their own daily school spaces. So increasingly, we're seeing schools allow students positions on the school board, uh, elevating the job of student government beyond the fun things, which are also super important. But like, what's the prompt theme gonna be? But also actually making decisions about daily procedures in their school and to the creation of school governance councils where students join with stakeholders like educators and parents and community members and members of school board to really participate actively in decisions about what schools are gonna be. So that's a place where we're seeing such per tremendous growth in the opportunities for students to see that their voice can be impactful. Online speech and questions around digital citizenship are certainly keeping us on our toes by way of living our values around protecting and elevating student speech, but also carrying out that educational mission of schools that the court in Tinkler had to grapple with. How can we model and create norms and even if necessary, enforce norms that allow us to do our work in schools and still respect all of the things that the First Amendment demands of us? And, you know, digital conversations intrude into and permeate school spaces so easily, right? Online isn't a different place from school. And so, how do we honor and help our students hone their voices, practice their voices, and still serve as those educators who are going to help them develop the norms of civil discourse so that it's effective, so that it doesn't interfere with or harm their classmates as they're doing them? How can we as teachers serve as mentors and exemplars and not censors, right? But still help our students to understand things about, you know, not bullying and not letting bias permeate those spaces. And so, you know, the the issue of how we protect free speech and elevate it while these digital spaces are now becoming integrated in our classrooms is is, you know, something that every day we're learning more about and practicing more about. And it's really important that we apply the values that come to us from our past to this new platform where speech is happening.
SPEAKER_02:What is a misconception that educators might have about student rights?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, you know, I thought about this question a bit, and I want to say that this intersects with some of teachers' greatest fears because speech can be messy, right? Speech can be unpredictable. And in a classroom, very often the response to a teacher's fear is control, because control feels like safety, right? Make you know, saying that things can't get out of control, things can't get scary in the classroom, issues can't become controversial, tempers can't get heated in a classroom. You know, one way to that you think you can avoid those things happening is by staying in control, locking it down, you know, putting really strongly enforced guardrails as to what you're gonna let happen in that space so that nothing scary can happen in those spaces. But, you know, the danger of that is when we're doing that, what we're modeling or what we're teaching students to be is we're teaching them to be comfortable in something that's a tremendous danger to our future democratic life, which is we're teaching them to be comfortable in places where that control is being imposed externally to them. And that's such a dangerous thing for us to be modeling for and helping with our students. So, what teachers, the misconception we have is that there's safety in control, when in fact there's safety in practicing, giving the reins over to our students, right? And and co-creating the norms that will make those spaces less scary while also being less controlled by teacher-imposed design and comfort.
SPEAKER_02:Can you share a moment when a student voice made a real difference in your classroom or in your school?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I have a list and we only have a few minutes, but there are some great ones I want to share. And so, you know, first of all, very early in my teaching days, I had created this what I thought was a fabulous assignment. And it was all about students creating their perfect state, right? Leaning a little into utopia, but we were teaching social contract theory and we were teaching natural rights and what were the basic elements of a government. And so students were challenged to implement all that learning by creating their own perfect state and identifying how those things were gonna happen. And this bright pair of young women came into my room early one day and said, Miss, your assignment's terrible. You missed something important and we're gonna make it better. And they spoke to me about how they needed to create two states because they wanted to create the dystopia that had fallen apart that led to the creation of the new government they wanted to create. So they wanted to show me both. And that's something that a lot of teachers might struggle with, right? A student comes. To you and say, I want to learn differently than the way that you taught me. You want me to learn and I want to design this differently. But thankfully, the young women had learned that you know my classroom was a place where I valued their voice. And so they knew it was safe to ask, even if I might say no. Um, so just a simple thing like that, making sure that my classroom is a place where the learners are in charge as much as I do requires it to be a place where no students ever afraid to raise their hand, to propose an idea, to challenge the decision you as a teacher made because they saw something that would make their learning better. And then, you know, once that happens, you can quickly get to places where students see that their learning is going to make a difference in the bigger community. So the other example I'll share here is that um before he was governor of Pennsylvania, back when he was still attorney general, Josh Shapiro went on a listening tour of the school districts of Pennsylvania. And the purported purpose of that listening tour was to get student opinion on how to reduce bullying in schools. And our school participated in one of the first stops. And I brought with me a group of students who were used to the kind of environment where they could raise their hand and said, Miss, we want to change your assessment and your assignment. Well, here's this person. They didn't really have an appreciation that he might be slightly more important than their teacher was. And so when he asked them, what should I be doing about bullying in school? One of my young women raised her hand and said, You're asking us the wrong question. Your question is dumb. And uh Shabiro stopped a moment and she said, Yeah, bullying's important, but it's a symptom. You should be going school to school, asking us about our mental health and what we need to help support our mental health. And you're doing this tour wrong. But it's early in the tour. And if you listen to us today, maybe you can fix it. Don't you know he did? He went back with his team and rewrote the script for the remaining school visits, but it wasn't even the result that was important in that moment. It was the fact that these young people who I had chaperoned and brought with me had no fear or no reservation about raising their hand to a man in power in our Commonwealth and saying, if you want to listen to us, you've got to be willing to hear us, even criticize the premise of the conversation. We have something more important we want to say to you, and you should listen to it. And and it and it changed things. And supporting mental health through school-based programming has become a very important part of the work the Commonwealth is doing here in Pennsylvania. And it was students who raised their hands and said, you should be listening up to us on this and make this decision.
SPEAKER_02:That makes my heart so happy. What are some practical strategies that can help teachers support healthy student expression?
SPEAKER_01:Practice, practice, practice. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice, right? I mean, the first thing is just you've got to make space for it a lot. If you are doing 80% of the teaching in your room, you're not doing this, right? How much just reflecting, how much time in your classroom are you listening as opposed to as opposed to speaking when you're engaging with students? There's your start. But the other thing I will say, and this is something that I've really come to reflect on and feel strongly about. I mean, when I went when I was in high school, I was a debater. I was in debate club, I took debate classes, my whole life was built around winning conversations, which I thought made me special. But as a teacher, I have come to recognize that if we want to foster speech in our students, if we want to give them their voice, conversations can't be about winning. They have to be about learning. How can we model discourse in our classroom in ways where students are not engaging to solidify their previously held beliefs, but rather are engaging in conversation where everyone is expected to show up and use their voice to add to the learning of the whole community? And what winning looks like at the end is everyone has learned something new. So there are so many great tools and resources and protocols out there that teachers can adopt in their classes that make students responsible for individual learning and then bringing that learning into the room, sharing it with others, valuing things like saying I don't know, asking questions, elevating someone else's voice over their own, things like the structured academic controversy, things like, I mean, I could list off a group of organizations that have great toolkits for teachers out there, the Illinois Democracy Hub's current and social issue discussion toolkit. My good friends and fellow educators, Joe Schmidt and Michelle Pinkney's book on civic discourse, which really includes a field guide for teachers wanting to know how to do this in their classroom. Sphere Education's getting started with civil discourse resources, iCivic's work on how we can teach hard things in our classrooms than we should, the Mercatus Center's Pluralist Lab Resources and their amazing documentary, Undivide Us, which is a great tool that teachers can share for free with their students to talk about how we bring together people who have very diverse points of view on emotionally charged issues. And it doesn't have to be a scary thing to have that conversation happen. So thankfully, this is something in the field we're doing a lot of work on, and there are a lot of tools, but it all boils down to do it a lot, right? Do it a lot and make sure that we understand that conversations are about listening and learning and less about winning.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. And we will put the resources that Shannon mentioned in our show notes so that teachers can get those. And I think that's one of the things I love about the civics world is it's not a competition. It's all of us just trying to make sure that teachers and students have everything they need. So our next set of questions is kind of for both of you. And Mary Beth, I will start with you on this one. And then Shannon, you can pipe in when you want. But why does the tinker case still matter more than 50 years later?
SPEAKER_00:It was an affirmation, the ruling, in the voices of young people being important, and also teachers, as I said, that was added to the ruling. Because young people have been discriminated against in our society, and they still are. I mean, you as nurses and healthcare professionals, you look at what age group is most likely to live in poverty, children and teenagers. Not because they don't work, because as soon as their parents have them, they are the whole family is more likely to live in poverty. And then if you associate with children and teenagers, like teachers, you're also not gonna be the most highly paid, highly esteemed group, and you're gonna be probably facing a lot of pushback and censorship, which is what's happening right now today, and disrespect. So I think you know that's partly the issue is that young people just really need to improve their conditions and their status, and mental health has a lot to do with it. I'm glad you mentioned that, Shannon, because I found out that it's really good for the health of young people, not just their physical health, but their mental health, their social health, and even their spiritual health, to speak up and advocate for their own interests. What would make my life better? What would help me? And a lot of this has to do with the policies that are, you know, being enacted at the state legislature, at the Congress, even, and at the Senate. And so students can find out are my interests being represented? And that's really what civics are about. But there's so much censorship right now. I had a teacher in North Carolina who told me recently, she's a ninth grade civics teacher. She told me, Now, I'm I'm glad you're gonna talk to my students because I was gonna zoom. But you know, our policy now in our district is no current events, no talk of politics or politicians. And this is a civics class. So I thought, well, how are we gonna talk about? You know, that just kind of cuts out everything. So, well, we can talk about the past because people are more comfortable talking about the past. But and I talked to the students then a couple weeks later and asked them, what about this policy? How do you feel about it? They said, Well, we can talk about things. And that's something to remember too. If you're a teacher who is feeling threatened by censorship because there are so many now, remember that your students sometimes have more agency to talk about things that are controversial that people might might feel uncomfortable with. But you know, we're in this time right now where there is just so much going on, and civics is such important, it's such an important subject and such an important skill for not only students but adults as well.
SPEAKER_01:And then, so I mean, why does it matter 50 years later? Well, why does the First Amendment matter 230 years later? I mean, it is, you know, we 50 years isn't a long time ago, but our values as a country are our values. And the only way we're gonna keep those values is if we continue to practice them with every new generation that comes along, right? And if you don't, then those rights can continue to be threatened. And certainly in the area of free speech in schools, we see new threats all the time. And I think it comes back to something that Meredith said earlier, which is elections bring out people who win popularity by expressing popular ideas, many of which can actually violate the rights guaranteed to us by the Bill of Rights. And it is important to stay ever vigilant, right? It is important to make sure that we're constantly modeling and teaching students what these rights are so that they can't by popular vote be removed from our classrooms. And, you know, we're in a moment where, again, as Mary Beth was just talking about, it's very popular to try to keep things uncontroversial and quiet and unscary in the classroom, but it's requiring us to triumph all over these rights that are so, so important to us. And we have to remind ourselves too, and this is something Justice Fortis said in this decision, that free speech isn't just about the right for our students to use their voices, but it's about their right to hear the voices of others and consume speech as well, right? Speech is a two-way thing. There is no meaningful right to free speech if there isn't a right to free listening, uh, right. And Justice Fortis said that we can't in the classroom just confine what our students hear to the things that are officially improved, the things that the state is choosing to communicate. We have to let them choose to consume and seek out through their curiosity ideas that are important to them. And so it couldn't be more important to continue teaching this case so that students have a solid foundation to stand upon when they want to stand up and say, but I have the right to learn and I have the right to have conversations and ask questions and seek information. And this case lets them know that those rights aren't theoretical. They've been confirmed by the institutions we put in place to tell us what our rights really mean when they walk and talk in the real world.
SPEAKER_00:So glad you said that, Shannon, because the right to hear things is very important when it comes to free speech and the First Amendment. And young people need to learn that also, that there's the right to free speech, but there that means you have a right to hear things that aren't always so popular. And in like Civics and iCivics has been good about this, a man named Isidore Starr. He was really good about talking about the the role of teachers to model these values also. And if teachers are feeling threatened, you know, that we could do a whole program on teachers' rights, and maybe you will do that soon. But you know, there are so many teachers that are speaking up for theirs rights. I was just reading this interesting book that I got yesterday as part of the National Council of Social Studies conference, which was held in DC this last week. And the book is called Trouble in Censorship. It's edited by two teachers, Nadine, Kayleen, and Rebecca Modrok, but it's uh full of stories of teachers who spoke up and librarians, because school librarians are also under threat. And so there was an event at yeah, there's there's a group called Teaching for Change, and that's where I met some of these teachers, and they have a journal actually that's associated, it's called Rethinking Schools. So those are other resources also that teachers and students can, you know, check out as far as teachers' rights and students' rights, because they do go together usually.
SPEAKER_01:And I've I've been thinking about a lot, and I'm so glad you said it that way, that when we're having these conversations about restricting content in classrooms, restricting what can be discussed. And as you said, Mary Beth, sometimes students, it's easier to make the case for student rights than teacher rights, but it is important that we stay focused on our students. They're the reason our schools exist, after all, right? We're there to focus on them. And when adults are making decisions about removing things out of their discomfort with the content that's going to be discussed, we place the rights of those adults ahead of the rights of the students, right? And we have to ask ourselves whose rights are we there to protect? A student's right to ask questions and hear diversity of thought, diverse opinions to seek knowledge, or our rights to be protected from some temporary discomfort, to be temporarily safe. Showing us I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna wreck Ben Franklin here for a minute, but you know, when we hide in that safety and security from things that make us uncomfortable, then we prove ourselves unworthy of that free speech right we should be protecting.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, in my experience speaking with students all over the country and all kinds of schools, I find that students are much more willing and enthusiastic about talking about controversial things. And it's adults usually who want to shut that down. And as a nurse, we feel that the most healthy thing that teenagers can do is graduate high school. And there's all kinds of research to show that kids who do that are going to be overall healthier. And so you want kids to stay in school. So, in order to do that, school has to be a place where they want to be. And having some of these controversies and conversations that are real to them and not just, you know, boring facts and figures all the time. That's part of keeping kids excited and engaged in school.
SPEAKER_01:I can give you an example of that. And it's such a small, everyday, mundane example. But one of my first years teaching in Allentown, where I am currently, uh, we had a survey unit on city government, and students were going to meet all the different departments of city government, kind of do a job shadowing, learn what they do. And so we had the fire department and the police department and the parks and rec and so many exciting things, and the department of waste management. And all I was thinking as a teacher ahead of time, I was anticipating, oh, the kids are really going to be complaining during the garbage rotation. Like that's the one they're not going to be excited about. And I couldn't have been more wrong when we sat down with the city manager who asked the students, and these were ninth graders, so we're talking 13-year-olds. I asked the students, what's the biggest issue in our city? And we have some big issues in Allentown. The students, 201, said, littering's getting worse. The trash on our streets is getting worse. We're embarrassed to live here. We're tired of walking out of our house and seeing trash on the ground. And it's your fault. You guys messed it up. And tell us more. And they said, Well, here's the thing: the city went out and bought these very expensive, solar-powered, trash-compacting public garbage cans, which save cities lots of money in downtown areas. They reduce how frequently you got to collect the trash. I mean, they can be really great, but they're really expensive. So you can't have one on every street corner, right? You got to space them out. Well, they'd been so successful in our center city area that the Department of Waste Management had started putting them in the residential neighborhoods around downtown, which meant now they ripped out the old manual garbage cans and put one of these new trash compactors in one every six blocks or so, which meant that if you, you know, pulled over with, you know, fast food wrappers in your car and you were in between the two trash compactors, it was three blocks in either direction to throw your trash away. And the students immediately noticed an increase in the amount of people just chucking their stuff on the ground and walking on. And again, you know, we modeled for them. Hey, these folks are here to listen to you, ask questions, be prepared, say something. And within only a couple months, the city began with the neighborhoods my students lived in and took out the solar compactors first and put the trash cans back. And the very next day when that happened, I came to school and there were students early sitting at my door. Miss, that was so cool. What else can you teach us? That taste of I'm not just speaking to be assessed on my learning. It's not just for a grade. You invested, you know, time in making a space for me to talk about something that was important and my words changed my neighborhood, and I want to learn more. So you're right. Giving students a place not just to speak, but see the impact of their speech makes them want to come to school the next day and do it again.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. I it made me think of this wonderful project called Project Citizen, which was a middle school project. I think some elementary kids were there too. I was at one of their um year of the end displays, I think in Phoenix, actually in Arizona. And it was really amazing because the kids picked projects that were relevant to them in their communities. And it was really, really important because it's a way of making them connect with civics in a real way. And like you said at one point in one of your talks, Jenny, you were saying that it's knowledge, skills, and actions and action. Young people are so geared towards action, and some of it is right in their brain chemistry. They have more dopamine in their brain. I mean, they want to take action, they want to take a little, you know, risk. And so we can help to channel that into some important, you know, things that can help their community and their schools.
SPEAKER_01:There's some great places that have picked up that mantle. Generation Citizen is doing great work at student-led civic impact projects. Uh, Bill of Rights Institute is now doing that with their My Impact Challenge. So there are a lot of places that are recognizing that to teach civics effectively, it can't just be about memorizing knowledge, but it's got to be about allowing students to engage and practice these civic skills. And so that is definitely helping us provide students a place to meaningfully raise their voice and see it have an impact on the people.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yes, but I saw where some school districts are stopping the practice of uh giving students credit for some of these engagement projects and that it's become controversial. So all of you can see how it is in your district, but I'm all for it. I think it's really great.
SPEAKER_02:I actually just did a podcast on the Arizona Civics podcast on participatory budgeting, and that is very much a student-led thing. It is it is probably one of my favorite things I did, and I did a podcast interview with Generation Citizen too. So I will our show notes are just gonna be overflowing for our teachers and our listeners. So I think the next question just it kind of like this is naturally where we're gonna go because I think the three of us here are huge proponents of students or huge proponents of teachers. And it it does feel heavy right now. So what and Mary Beth, I'll start with you. What gives you hope about? About this next generation of civics participants.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm really glad you mentioned the podcast on the budget because it was really great. And I listened to it and I recommend it to anybody because students get excited if they have a say in the budget. And why shouldn't they have a say in how the funds are spent? So what gives me hope is well, things like this podcast and all the wonderful teachers that I meet across the country and the students I meet who are speaking up and want to have a say. And they're allies, adult allies. I go to Congress almost every week to speak with Congress members and senators about issues that I care about right now. It's about Gaza, Palestine. Is it controversial? Yes. But I believe that we have to speak up about things and sometimes they're controversial. And I meet so many young people there who are also speaking up, not only about that, but about all kinds of things. And so that really gives me a lot of hope. But in there are occasional, you know, we have victories sometimes. You know, sometimes, you know, people are released from prison. We had this boy named Mohammed Ibrahim, who was a US Florida citizen who had been in an Israeli prison for eight months straight without charge. And as a result of community action and so many young people speaking up about that, he was released a couple of weeks ago. So, you know, occasionally there are some victories having to do with young people. But that's mostly how I spend my time is dealing with issues related to young people. And I do get discouraged as teachers do, because we see the wonderful qualities of young people, and we've been privileged to spend our lives with young people. But on the other hand, it's it makes us hurt and grieved to see how kids don't have what they need and to see so many resources going into war and the war economy and not going into the needs of children and you know, their housing, their education, clean air, clean water, all of these things that kids need. So, you know, I just take heart in meeting people who are speaking up and standing up to change these things that need change.
SPEAKER_01:I find hope in the pushback. That might sound a bit weird for starters, but the fact is that the pushback we're seeing today, the organization of adults who are made uncomfortable or insecure by the voices of our children and by the learning that's happening in our classrooms, is because it's been succeeding, right? We have so many examples. We can go back further than Mary Beth's own example, and we can take it right through to today. We have so many examples where young people have successfully challenged us to look at the way we do things in different ways. And when we've been open to it, we've learned from it, right? But that always means that the status quo is being challenged, that there is a new perspective that is different than the one we already have that is successfully getting out there in the world. So whether we're talking about my own students who, when I started with voter registration drives, pushed back at me and said, registering to vote isn't enough. We've got to make elections more accessible, especially in our community in Allentown, where the majority of people who vote, young people who vote, will be the first in their family to ever cast a vote, who live in communities where English is not the first language spoken, and polling places can be intimidating. And because of my students, we partnered with the county, and now there's a student poll worker development program. And there are students on staff every single election day in every polling place in Allentown. And there are statewide organizations like PA Youth Vote, national organizations like When We All Vote that have mobilized that young person's perspective on how to increase voter engagement, and it's working. We see examples like our young poet laureate, previous poet laureate, Amanda Gorman, and how passionately she used her talent to call us to and remind us of our values and inspire us to live to them. We see the people who were who were students at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, forming March for Our Lives and challenging us to think about keeping students safe at school. Young Mary Copening, who wrote a letter when she was a young girl to President Obama from Flint, Michigan, and saying, please come help us. Our water's not safe. And it was a child that opened that conversation. And I could go on and on and on forever. It is not hard to find an honor role of these students who have led our way to becoming better in our communities, better in our nation. But we have to be willing to not be afraid to do that. It's gone very well for us when we've allowed children and children and their voice to add their perspectives to our conversation. And so the hope I see is that the kids are still doing it and the pushback is sign, is a sign that it's working, that it's visible, that it's effective, and people are feeling the impact of youth voice.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sometimes those youth feel discouraged. And they ask me as I speak with schools around the country, why do you think people want to put us down? And why do people want us to shut up and not speak up about things? And that kind of hurts, but I have to think about that, you know, and ask. Then I ask them, why do you think that is? And they say, Well, they don't respect us, or they think we we don't have the right answers. And so I think it's a really important time to lift up sort of civics and civil interaction, being respectful with each other, kind with each other, empathy with each other. When I was in nursing school, I had to write my master's thesis on caring. Caring is a really important concept, and kids get that. And I always encourage kids, I was telling them the other day, you know, give yourself some credit, give yourself some positive messages, try to get rid of those negative messages and all that stress you feel. And and, you know, give just if you care, give yourself some credit for that. And then I usually advise them, you know, don't try to get off of social media a few hours a day because there's more and more evidence showing that that isn't really good for your mental health and can interfere with your sleep, which is so important for your not only physical health, but your emotional health. And there's this book, you know, maybe some of you listening have heard of this. It's the anxious generation, which of course we've all been reading. But I tell the kids about it, and I was like, you know, try to get off that social media for a little while because that's not going to help you either. But but I think, you know, kids do want to know why is it? Why do some of these adults want to keep us quiet? And so, you know, that it's also good to talk to them about some of the negative things that are going on out there that they think about because they wonder about these things. And I don't want kids to be quiet, I want kids to speak up and stand up. And I like to encourage them to know that they do have allies. And some of them are their parents, some of their parents, some of their teachers, some of the public who is, you know, lobbying the school board or the legislature, whatever. But there are kids and there are allies. But when kids have a voice for themselves and advocate for their own interests, it's very powerful, like what you were saying about Marie Copaney and Flint with the lead in the water. She started speaking up, and that made it so powerful. And so young people do have some power, they just need to feel it and use it. And when they do, I asked them how did it feel to go to the school board or to go out to that, you know, rally, whatever. Oh, it was so great. And we got the whole policy changed in our school about hats or you know, whatever it is that they're they're speaking up about. So yeah, it feels good for kids to do that too. And that's what we want them to feel.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Shannon, thank you both so much for being here and reminding us why Tinker vs. Des Moines is so much more than a court case. It's a story about courage, community, and the incredible power of young people to shape our democracy. So, as we've heard today, student voices aren't just a part of civic life. They're essential to it. Whether it's a quiet active protest, a classroom discussion, or a push for change in their community, Tinker continues to teach us that rights are lived, not theoretical, and that students deserve space to express themselves and be heard. Children should be seen and heard. To our listeners, thank you so much for joining us on this journey through one of the most important student rights cases in American history. If today's conversation has inspired you, please share it with a young person, an educator, or someone who believes in the promise of civic participation. And remember, the story of Tinker is never finished. Every generation gets to write their next chapter. Thank you both so much for being on Civics in the Year.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much for having us. And thank you, Shannon, to and to all the listeners. Best wishes, everyone. Here's to the First Amendment and to students and teachers and to everyone who are keeping our rights alive by using them. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Hear, here.
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