Learn Civics!
Tell Stories!
Make Change!
Civics Radio Network is an invigorating summer bootcamp and mentorship program for teens and young adults to explore civics and journalism, and create stories about how civics affects their lives.
WHAT IS CIVICS
Civics is about community. It’s how civilizations have ordered themselves for millennia.
Every aspect of our lives – from schools to highways to the safety of the electricity coming to our homes to the size of the sidewalks to how we can make a living to the cars we drive to the food we eat… in other words EVERYTHING… is ordered by decisions of governments.
In a democracy, civics relies on citizen participation and knowledge.
OUR CIVICS IQ
But in the U.S., our citizen knowledge of how government works is woefully low.
U.S. schools have, by and large, stopped teaching civics, because there is no standardized test for it.
And get this… Standardized tests, themselves, are a government decision… which comes out of a priority for government to show that public investment in education has a tangible return… which comes out of a view of society based on transactions and competition.
These are decisions. Civic decisions. Made by civic leaders over our history.
CIVICS AND POLITICS
Civics decisions are made by public servants. In a democracy, public servants are elected by the body politic. They have to campaign in order to govern.
For most of the last 50 years, the line between campaigning and governing in the U.S. has grown so thin as to be nonexistent. And it’s knowledge of how government works, and how the needs of the body politic should shape those decisions, that has almost totally faded away.
GETTING BACK TO BASICS
Civics Radio Network brings civics and journalism back together, teaching young people how governments work, how journalism should work, and how to create compelling stories that inform audiences and answer their basic questions.
The first cohort of the Civics Radio Network took place in June of 2024.
Here is the podcast that came out of that cohort.
Podcast Episodes
First blog post
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