The Civic Spirit Student Delegates have begun identifying civic-related issues in their schools and taking the first steps to develop projects that address these themes.
This process allows them to practice urgent skills of BRAINSTORMING and PROBLEM-SOLVING, which are needed to maintain a thriving, productive self-governing democracy.
Their first step was to use the “How Might We” (HMW) exercise from Design Thinking, a form of brainstorming that is often used in the tech space.
Students are asked to answer the following questions.
- I’ve noticed (CONCERN) in my school…
- How might we (ACTION) to address this problem?
Here are some of the Delegates’ beautiful ideas:
Example #1:
- We have noticed that some students view student government and the student elections process as meaningless.
- How much we make student elections relevant and important for each student?
- How can we get the school involved in helping us make this change, so that it is permanent and not only for a year?
Example #2:
- We have noticed that Sephardic (non-European Jewish) students are not adequately represented on billboards, posters, and promotional videos from our school?
- How might we create a better sense of involvement in our community so that we can account for all students, and not just a small percentage?
Example #3:
- We have noticed that the students in our school, especially juniors and seniors, feel a lot of stress and anxiety which can lead to chronic stress which affects both mental and physical health.
- How can we create a stress-free yet academically challenging school environment?
