By The Herald Editorial Board
Pity the high school government teacher who — during a period of political turmoil, busted norms and uncivil social media posts at the national level — is asked to convince students that the process of politics and representative government is a worthwhile pursuit, accessible and answerable to everyday Americans.
Yet, select classrooms in Snohomish County are getting a contrasting viewpoint from two County Council members, each representing different parties and political perspectives but committed to civic and civil discourse, working toward shared outcomes and building bridges.
What started as a joint commentary — written by Council Members Nate Nehring, a Republican, and Jared Mead, a Democrat — following the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol, was followed by a series of workshops promoting public discourse throughout the county, eventually becoming the Building Bridges Project, a nonprofit that seeks to bridge ideological divides through education, community engagement and advocacy.
The project’s latest outreach is its Future Leaders Academy, which built on the work that Mead and Nehring had already been doing in high school classrooms and college lecture halls and in bringing students to county council sessions.
Those classroom visits were useful, but just scratched the surface, Mead said.
“One period is not enough to really be able to dig in and have a robust discussion,” he said. “Not just about government and local government and what our jobs are, but politics and polarization and the history of social media, how to have healthy conversations and debate.”
Mead and Nehring have expanded that outreach with the Henry M. Jackson High School advanced-placement government classes taught by Jeana Schafte, visiting once a month and culminating last month with a visit to the state Capitol, where they toured agency offices, talked with officials and lawmakers and watched as a Senate resolution they helped draft, and sponsored by Sen. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek, was discussed and adopted.
The resolution’s wording, fittingly celebrating civic health, grew out of those classroom discussions, Nehring said.
“A lot of the things that we’ve been discussing during our class visits, issues about polarization and the lack of civility, we built those into the whereas clauses,” he said. “It’s basically a call for people to come together around civility and improving civic health.”
The classroom discussions and hands-on work of drafting legislation — along with a food and clothing drive and an essay contest as part of the curriculum — did correct misperceptions around government and politicians, said two of the students participating, Celine Kim and Sanyam Ittal.
“Before this program was introduced, what I knew of government for me was mostly from textbooks and headlines that I would see on social media and the news,” Kim said. “Through Building Bridges I really got to see what goes on behind the scenes.”
Beyond the soundbites and memes, Kim said she saw something more.
“I could see the people working hard to represent our community,” she said. “I’m just like, ‘Oh, these are real people who actually care for and work for a community.’”
Ittal, like Kim, formed most of his earlier opinions regarding lawmakers and politics from what he saw in social media.
“I actually didn’t know how Democrats and Republicans worked together,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine a scene like that. Why? Because social media had polarized me so much to make me think that they were mortal enemies who would just fight to the death.”
Those perceptions have changed during the course of the Future Leaders sessions in class and the day spent in Olympia.
“Yes, they have arguments,” Ittal said, but they arrive at decisions and compromises. And outside of chambers, “they’re just friends.”
Schafte, who has taught advanced placement government classes at Jackson for seven or eight years, said the monthly visits by Mead and Nehring have broadened perspectives for her students.
“The students get to know them, that they’re real people,” she said. “They’re both husbands and fathers and they have little kids, but they’re also very involved in what’s going on in county government and they want to share that with the students.”
The monthly sessions have helped broaden viewpoints and develop skills in civic discourse. One exercise, Schafte said, assigned students different positions on a political topic for a classroom discussion.
One student, who was pro-choice, was given the assignment to argue the pro-life case and briefly balked.
“Well, that’s the whole point: to get you to look at the other point of view, no matter what the issue is, to see both side of the issue,” she said.
Having Nehring and Mead, coming from different political parties and perspectives, yet still able to work to an understanding — if not a consensus — is a valuable lesson for students, Schafte said.
It’s a lesson that is especially important during a period when politics at many levels is fraught with turmoil and little evidence of mutual respect or civil discourse.
Students, she said, as they’re seeing what’s happening at the national level, are getting a contrasting views from local and state levels. And they’re asking questions.
“‘Is this legal? Is that legal? What’s happening?’ Right? They’re starting to realize that politics isn’t something so far away, that they can learn about it and talk about it, and it’s more accessible,” she said.
It’s also helped persuade a few students to consider political science as an area of study, if not a career.
“It doesn’t seem like an impossible thing that they could possibly run for local or state government” Schafte said.
Neither Ittal nor Kim are now considering political science, they said; both are planning to study business administration when they get to college, but the knowledge and skills are meant to be applied at a personal and community level, Mead said.
The common thread that Mead and Nehring are seeing in some of the essays is that students can now apply these leadership skills in their own lives.
“This is trying to help young people recognize that the natural instinct they have to be positive, to be curious and open-minded and empathetic, you should lean into that and hold on to it tight, and it can benefit you in the future,” Mead said.
The current environment of polarization and incivility is concerning, Nehring said. Yet, in working with the students, he and Mead are actually more optimistic about the future of politics at all levels of government.
“It seems to me that the younger generation, in a counter-intuitive way, is leading the way on this depolarization work, in this civility work,” Nehring said.
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