 So what we're going to talk about today is not just about civics, and here's just a little quick definition of civics as a social science dealing with the rights and duties of a citizen. So you guys talked about rights and duties and responsibilities, which is great. And we're going to talk about some ways in which we can make it a little bit more engaging. So authentic learning, the first place to start is to talk about what is authentic learning. And it's not a huge mystery, you can probably guess from the title itself. But basically the idea of authentic learning is solving real-world problems or role-playing real-world professions, and it's a great way to engage students. So the other piece is trying to find ways that you can integrate into other subject matters. So these are those particular kinds of projects which middle schools, certainly pre-MCAS, have been really good at, which is collaboration, working together, finding ways to incorporate ELA into social studies, which is relatively not that hard. But going beyond that, finding ways you can bring the technology teacher and the art teacher, even PE and so forth and so on, to try to bring that project and have it encompass more than just one discipline. So some of the anecdotal information coming out is that students aren't necessarily prepared to work more independently to solve problems on their own, aren't necessarily quick to come to solutions without looking for assistance. And so that's a real challenge that I think that authentic learning can kind of approach. In our eighth graders, I took two really extreme perspectives on Christopher Columbus, one coming from Howard Zinn, and one coming from a very traditional naval historian by the name of Samuel Eliot Morrison. And they of course had very different views of who Columbus was and how we should remember him. Students did their research. They formed opinions. And in the community that I was teaching at the time, nobody wanted to support the Columbus view, the pro-Columbus view. So we had students take on Devil's Advocate. We talked about what it means to be Devil's Advocate. And we talked about how that can really strengthen our own views, our own opinions. And so what they did is they took it a little step further. So this video is one that the kids really put together themselves with the support of a wonderful coach that we had. And they made this video following the initial debate. It's not that Spain didn't want slaves, it's that they didn't tell him to go get slaves. In any walk of life, if you're on my side or someone else's side, do you murder someone? Do you have to be ready to accept the consequences of murdering someone else? He brought Europe to America. The Europeans would have been able to go to America and without him. But if he hadn't done that, then the Native Americans would still be here today. Educating you are, you realize that it's wrong and you want to fight against it. Because I think continuously celebrating somebody who committed genocide and all of these other horrible acts says something about your character. And learning about Christopher Columbus, learning what he did, what he didn't do, and learning what he should have done made it to that form of opinion about Christopher Columbus. So it took an entire year, or school year I should say. They started, of course we did the Columbus debate in October. And by March, through all of this work that they had done, this was their result. Well, Daniel was a majority vote by the town voting members here at Amherst to make that name change. Now, it was already approved by the school committee to change it on the school calendar, but now the town will recognize it as well. Well, it all started with just another unit in social studies. What was really sticking out for me in that experience was not just the fact that the kids were able to make that presentation to the town meeting and had that voice be recognized, but also got to see the fact that there was opposing points of view and that those opposing points of views were being delivered respectfully. They used evidence and they used appropriate merits to bring in their side of the argument. So they got to see that this was not necessarily had to be a deeply divisive or contentious experience, but that you could actually have a forum in which you could have your voice heard.