 Hi, I'm Michael Morris, superintendent of schools in Amherst, and this is the latest episode of Window into Arps. And for today's episode, I'm thrilled to be welcoming to Molliston, a teacher at Fort River School, and Kira, one of our students, to talk about the civic literacy and organizing project and more generally about how students are getting very involved, both locally and beyond locally, to make our world a better place. So thank you both for being here. You're welcome. I appreciate it. And we've scheduled this a couple of times. Weather got in the way. The illness got in the way once, so I'm so glad to be finally sitting down and talking about this. And we're taping this on a day where there's a primary election today in New Hampshire, and so a great day to be talking about civic organizing and being involved in our communities. So perfect timing for us, so thank you so much for being here. You're welcome. And Tim, you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? Sure. I have been teaching at Fort River since 2008, except for a short stint teaching third grade in South Deerfield. And prior to that, I worked as an organizer in the nonprofit sector, basically teaching college students how to make an impact on things that they cared about. And so that, in part, is sort of what led me to develop this project. Fantastic. Thank you. And Kira, you tell us a little bit about yourself. I'm a seventh grader, and I like participating in this, and I feel like I kind of went a little bit above and beyond and took over a little bit. Fantastic. And you tell us a little, did you go to Fort River for? I went to Fort River all seven years. Seven years, and now you're in seventh grade. Fantastic. Thank you for being here. It's really nice. Last year we had a couple opportunities to have students involved, and your voice is incredibly important. So thank you for doing this. And so I could start with either of you, but maybe on this one actually start with Mr. Austin. Can you share a little bit about the civic literacy and organizing project more generally, and then we'll get into the kind of nitty gritty of what happened last year and the work that was happening, the work that had occurred. Sure. So the project was sort of born out of some work that the sixth grade team had been doing at Fort River for a number of years. And back then we just called it the Civic Literacy Project, and we started with students writing to elected officials about issues that they cared about. And then eventually students were working in small groups to develop proposals that they then made to those elected officials in miniature lobbying meetings. So students had some really excellent experiences meeting with people like Representative Ellen Story, Congressman Jim McGovern. But the team always wanted to take things to the next step and really teach students how to organize for social change. And so during the, or sorry, before the 2018-2019 school year, we applied for a grant from a magazine called Teaching Tolerance, and we won the grant and were able to partner with two people that we hired as organizers in residence. And so they actually supported students and teachers in developing meaningful campaigns around the issues that students cared about. And it was all kind of a big experiment because we, you know, we just came up with this idea of organizers in residence, no one had really done it before. And we also couldn't plan for what the students would eventually choose. So it was a little bit scary, but it turned out a really amazing way. We're really proud of the work that all the students did. Yeah. And I think, you know, when I think about that term, it's often you hear more frequently artists in residence or someone who is supporting it. Right. And I think we have to plan words that think about, you know, what organizing is and how it's in our art form as well as being practical on and of itself. Yeah. We actually got the idea from working with Enchanted Circle Theater as an artist in residence. We'd done that several years back, and so just came up with this new idea. Yeah, I like it. And I'll say as someone who's gotten letters and interviewed by students over, of yours over the past couple years, I mean, I definitely felt like, including last year, you could definitely see the difference that before and after in terms of the collective impact was clearly on the minds of students in a little bit of a different way this past year. Good. Yeah. So, Kira, why don't we go to you? What was your role in the project? We, it started off like everyone had their own separate projects. We would write like a letter to someone about something that was important to us. And we had like all of these different topics, and I'm pretty sure like there was three kids per thing at most. And most of it was like one person or two people. And then the organizers came in, read all of our letters, picked the things that the most people and organized it into those and made groups. Then we would like make videos and stuff and we all got to choose which one we wanted. But I feel like it was kind of fun writing to like town officials and state officials and just like over the nation, like people who are like in charge and everyone getting to talk to them and say like what they want to and talk about these issues that they want to change. For you being a student, what was your initial letter about? Do you remember? I wrote about homelessness. Homelessness in our community or more generally? Both. Mainly in our community, but also kind of more generally. Yeah. And I think that's just a good tangible example to go back to Mr. Ross. And how did you see your role in the project because you have students coming up with these ideas that are really passionate for you. Organizers and residents and what's the role of the educator in this kind of really rich moment? Well, I felt like I had to wear a lot of hats. The most important one was working with the students and really facilitating this process that Kira was describing of starting off with student writing and then bringing that to the point where you eventually had a campaign that the class had come to consensus around. And then from there, the work sort of shifted once the campaign started into teaching students the skills that it would take to get the job done and really affect change on the issues they cared about. But then I also had this role of kind of working with other teachers and because, you know, for most teachers this was a totally new concept, not the idea of project-based learning, but more the idea of organizing for change and what that looks like. And that's expanded this year because now we have, starting in the next couple of weeks, we'll have three other schools launching the program. So I'm doing more coaching now. Just exciting for me. That is neat. And for you, Kira, as a student, what did it feel like the goal of the project was? I feel like overall we were kind of answering, which we heard a lot, is answering this one big question, how did social change happen? And so like it wasn't just like we thought about it and we figured out answers, we actually got to make social change happen and organize these big projects, which turned into a whole like big fair thing. We'll get to that in a second, I think. No, that's helpful. And can you share, I mean, so you talked about homelessness being something you advocated for. Did that end up once the organizers had all the letters in? Is that something that the class took on? Yes. I feel like it was either second or third place, like out of all of the things. We had like I think six or seven issues and like the top ones were homelessness, climate change, and like the school strike for climate slash sunrise movement. Fantastic. And then your class ended up going with the campaign to prevent deforestation. Yes. Deforestation in Massachusetts. There was a bill going around at that time. And yeah, I was curious to hear from you, Kira, how did you come up with the concept of homelessness and then what was the dialogue that got to the deforestation? Well, me and my friend, because once we figured out this unit, we actually started talking about it and discussing all the problems in the world. And then we realized homelessness is a big issue and there's all these things that connect to it. So we were thinking, oh, maybe that would be a good thing. So me and a couple of my friends decided to write about that. And how did the deforestation one, how did that kind of evolve with the dialogue in your class? Well, at first... I know this was about nine months ago, so I know I'm... At first, a lot of people, I feel like we're kind of more against it. And they were like, well, I really don't want to do this one and I would rather do this one because we narrowed it down to two and people got pretty frustrated after voting because it was tied and they were like, oh, I don't want to do this one, and I don't want to do this one. So they kind of had to choose the one they wanted to do more or the one that their friends were voting for. So that's kind of how we ended up doing that, which also kind of tied into most of the other classes we're doing and linked directly to what one of the other classes were doing, so that was kind of fun. We also joined classes and we... And it was like, because the classes were with our friends, they were different quads, so we would switch off some days and kids from that class would come to our class and vice versa. That's neat. I think you've actually described the political process really well for adults, let alone kids. So I think that's really helpful and I think one of, you know, something that I see is just when we think about advocacy and being involved, it is that sometimes you have to work with others to make choices about what has the most impact at any given time. So I appreciate your description and I also appreciate that it wasn't easy. And when you're making a choice, it's, you know, it's somewhat binary, right? You choose A, you choose B for this project and there's some truth to that, even, you know, outside the specific project. But who else was involved? So I know the students were involved, the artists and residents, excuse me, the organizers and residents were involved. Who else became involved in the work? I feel like me and another kid, Trey, called a bunch of different businesses and got trees from the Amherst Tree Warden, had the Garden Center, Amherst Nurseries and the Home Depot Garden. And then the kids and teachers from Jackson Street School in Northampton also got involved. And we made this giant tree out of cardboard and they gave in leaves and it was like a Mr. Austin High and a Student Wide were the measurements. Your first word, anything you'd add about other folks who were involved? There ended up being a lot of people involved and I thought about this in preparation for this taping and there were, Kara mentioned a couple of local businesses that had helped out, but in addition to that there ended up being students from at least three other schools, some very local, some farther field that were involved in the campaigns, there were elected officials, there were other organizations that were coalition partners of ours, there were members of the media that got involved. So it ended up being hard to keep track of at some point because there was so much going on amongst the four different classes. And as the primary instructor in the setting, how did you manage what Kara talked about, that there was perhaps some disagreement amongst students about how to focus the energy and how to focus the work, because I used to teach fifth and sixth grade at Fort River and I know Fort River fifth and sixth grade students can be incredibly passionate and we want that, that's a good thing, but it does lead to a challenge around how to make sure that everyone's still on board and still supportive moving forward. I think that was actually one thing that made that task easier was working with Steph and Lindsay, our organizers and residents, because they have a lot of expertise around social movements and actually did a lot of work with the students and the teachers talking about sort of the intersectionality of the different issues that were at play. And I think from my perspective that ended up building probably more flexibility in the students' minds as the project went on. Because I think when students started with their writing, they had kind of one issue in mind, but over the course of the next couple of weeks they started to see the connections that there were between their issue and a friend's issue. It ended up going, that part ended up going a lot more smoothly than I expected. That's a good thing and I secure it out of your head. Yeah, it kind of went more smoothly than I did because kids will get into fights over what math problem is right in the answer to a question. I got along a lot better than most people were expecting, I feel like, because we were like, I see how this connects to my issue. I guess I can agree to this. Or they found something they wanted to do in the project because there were so many different parts and so many new pieces and groups. And there was building a tree. There was organizing how to get the seedlings and saplings. There was reaching out to other schools and to family members and to people. And there was just writing stuff. You didn't even have to be part of a public face. There was also calling news people and getting them to come. Everyone kind of found something they wanted to do and most people got to do that thing. Yeah, that's helpful. Before we get a little more into details of the outcomes of the project and how it stayed with you, Kira, we talked before the taping and clearly that activism is only contributing to your work you're doing now at the middle school. Use the term before project-based learning and I'm just wondering if you could, in a nutshell anyway, for our viewers, maybe a term that they're unfamiliar with. Well, project-based learning is something we've been talking about a lot at Fort River and I know other schools in the district and other places are thinking about it a lot. It's not something new necessarily, but it's just this idea that students learn best most of the time by doing the things that we're trying to teach them rather than simply learning about them. And there's a whole sort of movement about project-based learning and it wasn't something that we consciously thought about in developing this project, but in kind of learning about it more this year what we're doing fits pretty squarely with that. I agree. Thank you. I think that's really helpful. So now we get to outcomes. What were some of the outcomes of the project and I'll start with Kira. What do you feel like you learned through the process? I feel like a lot of students kind of got their confidence boosted and they can make changes happen and that usually it's not just them who does this thing and especially with all of the other school strikes for climate and Greta Thunberg, all that stuff. A lot of students were like oh, it can be just me and then a bunch of people can add on. So I feel like that helps a lot. And with our teachers this year kind of adding on and we do a thing every day one out of our seven day jobs. Where we will work on something of our choice and those teachers will give us like four or five choices and each student can choose one of those things. A lot of times there's something to do with climate and there's clubs that will help with that so then I feel like kids from who's done that project get a lot more involved with that kind of thing and I've noticed that we organized a school strike earlier this year and I noticed a lot of people who are working on that project with me like we're coming in doing that and I don't want to be part of it. Fantastic. Thanks. From your perspective in terms of outcomes? I mean I was thrilled with how the project turned out. Like I said it was kind of an experiment and some of the outcomes that Kira mentioned I would totally agree with. I think having students see themselves as agents of change is really the best thing to come out of this. But then also some of the some of the specific tactical outcomes that happened within a given campaign were pretty exciting and unique and the six foot tree that Kira mentioned it was made basically all the leaves on it were signed by different students from Fort River and then also Jackson Street School and a small group of students delivered that to the state house to some of the sponsors of the bill as like a thank you. We had students working to change the Massachusetts state flag who gained a lot of media attention around the issue both locally and even in the Boston Globe. So just to see sixth graders do those things that I used to teach college students about and see the sixth graders have a pretty similar level of success sometimes exceeding what I saw with college students was just marvelous. I'm so happy with it. Thanks and I'll stay with you Tim if you could talk a little bit about how the project's expanding you sort of you touched on it earlier about how the project's expanding this year. So we again have support from teaching tolerance we won another grant another round of funding from them so our organizers and residents are working with us again this year and the teaching team at Fort River last year had a goal of recruiting at least one other school to be doing this type of work so we're really excited that there are three additional schools in our district now that are going to be doing the project and actually this week we're going to be kicking that work off and so we had a couple of professional development days one in November and then one just a couple of weeks ago where teachers sort of learned about the work and what we did at Fort River last year and then spent a good deal of time planning together and with our organizers and residents to make it happen. So hopefully we'll have not only the chance for more students to do that type of work but also to make connections across schools. I think that's going to be probably easier than it was last year. You all worked really hard to recruit and it worked but it was you know it's a tough task. Students in the class were reaching out to step-sillings cousins, people all over the place so friends even in other states and stuff and yeah tell your school about this or other teachers yeah. And most of the schools who are involved actually all of the schools who are now getting involved this year were schools that students reached out to last year and got involved in the projects in one way or another. Yeah and it's nice that you're going to build momentum year after year. Do you mind mentioning which are the schools in the district that are competing with you? So the sixth grades at Pelham and Crocker Farm are also going to be working on this and then the seventh grade social studies teachers at the Amherst Regional Middle School are doing a slightly different version of the project. I don't know if they've told you about it yet Kira but that'll be I feel like students have been picking up on stuff like that because we're like ending a unit now. They've been hinting about some big projects. Awesome, cat's out of the bag I suppose Kira but that's okay. We're one of the really exciting things to come out of the professional development series that we did is we've now sort of developed this idea of a civic engagement arc we're calling it starting in sixth grade going through seventh and then eventually into eighth grade where the state is now requiring a civic engagement project and eventually high school we haven't gotten there yet but that's the plan. Yeah, no it's fantastic and I think it's also just such a fit developmentally for students like yourself we're entering that kind of early adolescent phase and they want to own learning and they want to be leaders and sometimes it's hard for schools to figure out the structures to harness that positive energy and do what you're talking about Kira and be a leader for social change so I love that this is now expanding beyond where it started and thank you for applying for that grant again not only on behalf of Fort River and the other schools in the district we're getting close to the end of our time here but for either of you what lessons did you learn that you can apply in other situations or what are things that you took out of the experience I'll start with you Kira. A lot of more talking skills and how to convince people I feel like I'm more persuasive and kind of convince people of things more often also I feel like a lot of people know more about this issue now I was mentioning earlier we did a fair where all the students planned it was entirely student planned and organized and so that freedom I feel like a lot of students got a certain freedom they don't usually have and there was like all these stations and we invited representatives and I think it was Mindy Dom actually came and got a sapling and we got a picture we think picture is whatever and their saplings and so that was fun and that got the whole school involved I'm pretty sure the students liked that we were like 15, 20 minutes and then there was a giant basketball game so that was fun with the prize being do you remember a tree to plant at your school and who won that? us by far Mr. Ross anything else you'd like to share about you know things that you know lessons you learned or how the projects developed over time and what it's like as the instructor I think for me one of the biggest lessons has been one of the things we're trying to teach the students is that social change happens on a very long scale that it's this thing that is not one in a week it's not one in a six week project or anything like that it's something that takes a really long time and that's almost for me that also feels like it applies to developing work like this as a teacher and this is something that's taken I think we first did the old Civic Literacy Unit five, six years ago and now we're at this point where it looks very different and so just for me I think the value of working with a team over a long period of time because Tammy Sullivan Daily and Tori Weed and I have been working at this for years and now it's to the point where we feel that we can invite other teachers in and really try to build the work beyond what we've done so I think that long view is what I'm thinking about a lot I think it's a good lesson actually for the students as well because it's thinking back about my childhood and some of the activism that I witnessed it was very temporal in nature and that climate deforestation those things aren't solved very quickly and to have that long view instructionally but also for the students is incredibly important so a whole lot of people working in New Hampshire today for lots of different candidates with really different viewpoints and the reality is today is one stop on their journey leading to Tuesday a couple weeks from now which would be a bigger stop and then all the way down to an election and all the way down to making decisions in the future and I think that's hard but I think having students like yourself Kira can just learn that it's a long process but learn that you're in it for the process and you're in it for the long haul there's nothing more important than we can do for our students and affect the world that way so thank you both and thank you both for coming on the show and sharing your opinions I know it's not in your normal daily experience to be in a television studio but Amherst Media is such a welcoming host so thank you and thank you very much for viewing this latest episode of Window Into Arms thank you