Let’s encourage all adults to take part in big-picture, community-minded civic lessons

The Trump years caused a welcome spike in learning about how our government is supposed to work.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s 2020 civics survey found that 51 percent of those surveyed could name all three branches of government, up from 26 percent in 2016. That’s still not enough, but it’s encouraging. Even more encouraging, many states, including Washington, have adopted laws that require students to complete civics courses before high school graduation.

Maybe in a few years we can get to 75 percent of Americans being able to name the executive, legislative and judiciary branches.

But there remains an unmet need for civic, rather than civics education. There is no clear agreement on the definition of civics versus civic education, but the general idea is that civics is about government, while civic education pursues the broader goal of learning not only know how government works, but more broadly how all the interconnected parts of our country and our communities work.

We’d argue that this broader, deeper knowledge is even more important than being able to name those three branches, and that healthy civic cultures are a prerequisite to a healthy democracy.

In Thurston County, our civic culture is the sum and synthesis of our schools, colleges, businesses, housing, law and justice institutions, health care providers, nonprofits, libraries, children’s programs, elder care services, arts, and more. It is also the product of our demographics, our racial and immigration history, and our trajectory in recognizing and remediating injustice. All of that is the knowledge gap we need to fill.

Fortunately, the Thurston Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Leadership Thurston County program has been working to do some of that every year since 1994.

Last Wednesday, 28 local adults from businesses, nonprofits and government agencies graduated from its intensive, year-long civic education course.

Each year, LTC classes meet for one full day a month for 10 or 11 months, with lots of homework in between. The participants meet with and learn from people in education, health, human services, housing, the environment, law and justice, arts, culture, business and economic development. Starting in 2020, they also spent a full day studying racial justice. Alisha Blain-Warner, the skilled and enthusiastic program director, says racial justice will be an annual topic for the foreseeable future.

Their employers paid their $2,400 tuition. Graduates receive nice plaques, and a notable addition to their resumes.

Leadership Thurston County serves up to 40 people a year, though classes are usually smaller. (The 40-person limit was based on how many people they could get on a bus to tour water and sewage treatment facilities, rural south county communities, children’s programs and more.)

This year, Blain-Warner managed to pull off the whole program (minus the bus tour) on Zoom. Only last Wednesday’s genial and joyous graduation ceremony was in person.

The curriculum is designed by the foundation’s Board of Regents, which includes business, nonprofit and academic leaders, local elected officials, and the previous year’s graduates.

This is a great model of adult education that fosters big-picture, community-minded thinking and leadership. We salute the Chamber Foundation for making this such a successful program.

But we need much more. We need opportunities for people from all walks of life and all racial and immigration histories to diversify their circles of acquaintance and the scope of their concerns.

We need to weave together the separate threads of our multitude of experiences, ideas and hopes. Our isolation from each other and our blind spots about who we share this community with weaken our capacity for both a healthy community and a resilient democracy.

Single-issue community activists often limit their effectiveness when they stay in their own silos. And inactivists — of whom there are too many — are missing a key part of the life of a citizen.

According to Blain-Warner, most programs like Leadership Thurston County are independent nonprofits. We need such a nonprofit to do what LTC does for more people, and in more ways. With a modest amount of funding, an independent nonprofit could provide free or affordable leadership and citizenship training that brings together people of every income, age, race, religion and political belief. It could stimulate civic potential and pride.

At this moment, that idea is just a seed in the wind, but we hope it may land somewhere and take root.

It’s not enough for residents to choose sides and vote. It’s not even enough to know the constitution. We need to know each other if we want to rebuild the foundation that holds up our democracy.