with Constitutional Scholar Julie Silverbrook
A playground, a library, or a family road trip are actually incredible opportunities for civic education.
In this episode of How We Future, Lisa sits down with Julie Silverbrook, chief content and learning officer at the National Constitution Center, to explore how we can make civic life more accessible, inviting, and meaningful for people of all ages.
Together, Lisa and Julie explore civic parenting: the ways parents, caregivers, and other trusted adults can help young people develop the habits and confidence to participate in civic life. From picking up trash at the playground to advocating for a neighborhood park, Julie shows how everyday experiences can help children understand shared responsibility, discover their agency, and see that their voices matter.
You’ll also hear about:
How family stories, holiday traditions, books, and everyday experiences can ignite a lifelong interest in civic life.
How Julie involved her young daughters in advocating for their neighborhood playground and helped them see their voices reflected in the outcome.
How libraries, museums, and historic sites can create welcoming spaces for curiosity, connection, and lifelong learning.
Why disagreement doesn't have to divide us and how productive friction can strengthen our ideas.
Lisa and Julie also discuss why civic life extends far beyond politics and voting, how libraries and other community institutions can bring people together, and why learning to disagree constructively is essential to a thriving democracy.
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Julie Silverbrook: Human interaction, again, is like a building block of civic life because human beings are naturally social creatures. That's why we've actually, ultimately, come together to govern as a group rather than just trying to do it all separately on our own. Those little things, those are the building blocks of civic learning and civic life.
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Lisa Kay Solomon: I'm Lisa Kay Solomon, and this is How We Future, where I talk to some of my favorite changemakers about shaping tomorrow starting today.
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Lisa: Today, I'm talking with Julie Silverbrook, the chief content and learning officer at the National Constitution Center and the co-host of the Civic Parenting Podcast. Julie has spent her career helping people understand the Constitution, and our conversation today centers on how we can help people understand what it really means to be part of a democracy.
Julie talks about how the most important civic lessons can happen around the dinner table, on a neighborhood walk, or even at the playground. She shares the personal experiences that first drew her to civics, how a neighborhood playground became an opportunity to help her daughters understand decision-making, and the role that all parents can play in shaping the next generation's relationship with our democracy. Let's jump in with Julie Silverbrook.
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Lisa: Julie, your work has been so inspiring for the years I've known you. You've had lots of titles in your life. Currently, today, you are the chief content and learning officer at the National Constitution Center. Before that, you were head of partnerships at iCivics. You are a constitutional scholar, but I really think of you as a civic doula. How about that as a title, Julie?
Julie: I love that.
Lisa: Has anyone--? You do? Okay. Good.
Julie: Well, I've been called a constitutional-- a lot of times. I did a podcast last week where I was referred to as a constitutional goddess. I liked that one, too, but the doula-
Lisa: Oh, I bet, too.
Julie: -I'm very-- oh, I've been a constitutional lobbyist. I've also heard just lobbying for people to read the Constitution and understand it. I want to know, what is a constitutional doula? I love this one.
Lisa: Much of your work is about making civics, civic learning, civic engagement, civic conversation, civic rituals available to more people. I feel like you're giving birth to a new way of showing up in the world that helps everybody. It's one of these things where we didn't think we needed a doula until we have a doula. Again, Julie, I feel like your work has just been so powerful about helping educators and teachers and community members. We're going to talk about your new podcast on civic parenting, which I just am slightly obsessed with because I think it's so powerful.
I just think of doula as someone that helps everybody in the process while also giving life and supporting the beginnings of life. I feel like we are in need of a civic renaissance. It's partly why I'm doing this season on Civic Futures. I just feel like your work is so instrumental, both in what you're doing, of course, at the National Constitution Center, but just generally about helping more people feel like they can get engaged in this field.
Julie: I don't know if you know this, but my husband is an OBGYN, so this will definitely be our dinner table conversation this evening. I do think the work of preparing people for actively engaging in civic life is essential to sustaining constitutional democracy in the long term. I have devoted my career. I get a question all the time. I'm a lawyer by training. "Why did you decide to do this?"
Actually, I had originally thought that I was going to become a law professor, and then I had the opportunity to do some constitutional education work in the community during law school, and it was so impactful and to really see how community members, adults and young people alike responded when given the tools to understand a major constitutional issue that impacts, in some instances, impacted their community.
That was transformational for me, and at that point, I knew, actually, I want to go and help the general public understand the Constitution and also understand the roles and responsibilities of citizenship and how they can engage from a very early age all the way through your entire life, right well into adulthood. One of the things that I love most about working at the National Constitution Center is we reach learners of all ages. I have the privilege of thinking about how best to design learning experiences for people of all ages and that's pretty cool for me.
Lisa: The National Constitution Center is in Philly where we-
Julie: It is.
Lisa: -share a passion for, and our roots are Philly-based, so I always love talking to fellow Philadelphians. There's also a lot of programming online as well. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about what the NCC does and who it reaches.
Julie: The National Constitution Center is-- it was chartered by Congress in 1988, coming out of the bicentennial of the Constitution, and we are congressionally chartered but private museum that sits at the end of Independence Hall. We directly overlook Independence Hall, where the Constitution was drafted and signed the Declaration of Independence, too.
In addition to being this incredible museum where you can come and learn about the history of the Constitution, we also have, as part of our mission, connecting to people across the nation to help educate them about the history and contemporary relevance of the United States Constitution. We are both a museum and a national education organization.
As I said earlier, we design programming that reach people of all ages. We have a lot of online programming. We have courses. We're going to build more. We're about to launch something called "Constitution University," which is where adult learners will be able to learn about a range of constitutional topics from the nation's leading constitutional scholars and do it for free. We have courses and other curricular resources for K-12 students.
We reached 6.1 million middle and high school students across the country. We just launched a family learning experience called "Civic Quest," which is an intergenerational civic learning experience where families co-learn together by becoming history detectives, civic detectives, and they go through missions and decode clues and learn about key moments in American constitutional history. We're moving to reaching younger learners and reaching them in the home.
We bring our scholarly programs and civil dialogue model to communities across the country, particularly those in rural and remote communities through a program called "NCC Across America." The National Constitution Center is a lot of things, and all of them are really, really important. We're very focused not only on what we can do to enrich the civic life in Philadelphia, but how we can increasingly bring that, that richness to communities across the country, particularly those communities that don't have access to civic institutions.
Lisa: It's so cool to hear about the depth and breadth, and I couldn't help but think we just lost an American icon in Dolly Parton. One of the great gifts that Dolly Parton gave the world was Imagination Library, which is this idea of her being moved coming from the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and being very passionate about literacy and helping young people grow and develop beyond where they started and giving them access to books, particularly in areas that don't have libraries, these kind of library deserts, if you will. Her idea was, "Why don't we just bring books to the people?"
When I think about what you're doing at the National Constitution Center, it is of that same feeling of bringing the constitution and civics to people, meeting them where they are and breaking out of maybe what we thought of as like our grandma's civics or just three branches of government or civic trivia as opposed to really applied civics in the world.
Julie: I also think we, as a field, I think sometimes have the field of dreams philosophy, which is like if we build really interesting programs, people will come. I think through difficult times for the civics field, scores are flat, people are not necessarily coming to civic institutions for good reliable information. We've realized that we actually have to modify human behavior, create incentives, on-ramps for people who want to learn.
There are civics nerds. We know them. They're our best friends. There are community who want this. They crave it, and they seek it out. We also really have to design and deliver civic programs like you just described that meet people where they are and the content delivery-- it's not gimmicky. The idea isn't to make it so gauzy that it doesn't have substance, that it sparks curiosity and it sparks interest. I talk a lot about civic sparks on the Civic Parenting Podcast, but really across my work, which is how do I get people to care in the first place?
Sometimes that's a cool thing you did with your parents. You went out to the polls with your parents, or it's a story you heard from a grandparent or an aunt, uncle, a story of service. Those sparks, those are so important. What I have been thinking about is how do I bottle that and create opportunities to spark that curiosity, particularly in communities that feel a little bit more alienated from civic institutions. How can we--? Civics is going to be a word that I talk a lot about, but civic welcome, civic invitation, how do we invite people in. Don't discount the July 4th bike parade for your kids. I actually think that's really important. Eat ice cream on July 4th with your children and then talk to them a little bit about what July 4th means. They're going to remember the ice cream, but as they get older, because knowledge is cumulative, they're also going to start to understand those conversations and those traditions. We need to be more welcoming, more inviting, and thinking about how we spark that curiosity.
Lisa: I think, Julie, you've really given birth to a whole different vocabulary around it. I'm thrilled you're going to be talking about it. I've heard you talk about civic optimism, civic curiosity, civic microdosing, which I thought was interesting, civic rituals. Using what's available to us, I like the idea of civic sparks. Sometimes, when I talk about design, when it's done well, I think of it as a Trojan horse where you're going with the ice cream, but you're sort of sneaking in a different conversation.
Julie: I used to say chocolate-covered kale. Come for the chocolate, stay for the kale, and a certain percentage will like the kale underneath the chocolate. Yes, it is. That's the Trojan horse [chuckles] is the kale underneath. This is good for you, and it can also sometimes be fun and emotionally resonant, and it's on us to design experiences that are inviting in that way.
Lisa: Yes, it's just foundational. Even just talking about our families as a civic unit and some of the traditions that we have or some of the books that we read. Before we get into some of that, Julie, I was so thrilled to hear about your origin story about how you even got interested in civics, and it has to do with a very large snowstorm that happened in the Philly area. I wonder if you could just share that as a little bit of maybe some of the roots of civic parenting that you didn't even realize was happening.
Julie: I grew up outside Philadelphia, and in the mid-1990s, there was a very large blizzard. My parents are both doctors and they practiced together, and the deal for the pending snowstorm, I think my mom drew the short straw because she had three young children. My dad got to go to the hospital in case any of their patients had emergencies and needed medical care. My mom stayed home with me, my twin sister, and my older brother.
I was in fourth grade at the time, and we were-- school was closed for two weeks. We went through every board game, every activity. We just had regular TV back then, regular cable TV. We had run out of things to watch. I think my mom was just honestly looking for activity so she could enjoy her coffee. We still had print encyclopedias, and she said, "I'm giving you each an assignment, and you're going to give a little presentation."
I got the letter C. That was what was assigned to me. Went to the encyclopedia, fortuitously, serendipitously, however you want to think about it. I opened up to the entry on the Constitution, wrote things down, did my little report, finally go back to school. We're learning about the three branches of government. I know all the answers because I just did my report on the Constitution. I remember I came home and I told my mom-- I was super A-type even back then. I was like, "I know all the answers about the Constitution. I'm going to do the Constitution for the rest of my life." How many people can say from fourth grade to mid-career? They've actually--
I have. I've done the Constitution for my entire life. It followed me through college and again into law school, where I thought I was going to be a law professor and then really just kind of fell in love with civics and constitutional education for the general population. It is a very cool story. I do have this podcast called Civic Parenting, and at some point, I'm going to have my mom on for a civic grandparenting episode.
She is very, even as a grandparent with my children and my nieces and nephews, very mindful about their civic development and intentional about the books that she buys for them and the experiences that she takes them to enjoy with her. A civic life is enriched by all of the adults and people and institutions that impact you. It's an intergenerational thing, and I'm very grateful for what she did for me and what she is continuing to do for my kids.
Lisa: That is such a cool story. I just love it. How inventive of your mom to be like, "Okay, we're going to make something up here." As you said, how serendipitous for all of us that you picked the letter C. I just think that's great. I love the intergenerational component to it. I will say, as someone that did have their mom on their podcast, highly recommend it. It is so fun to-
Julie: You really loved it? I'm a little nervous.
Lisa: Oh, I love it.
Julie: I'm a little nervous.
Lisa: Oh, my gosh. I loved it.
Julie: Sometimes I'm a little nervous about what she might say, but yes, she's an incredible lady. The other part of the story is I grew up in a town called Washington Crossing, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's where Washington famously crossed the Delaware River to fight the Battle of Trenton. We always used to go around Christmas time to watch the reenactment. We're a Jewish family, so we would typically go and get Chinese food afterwards.
Actually, this really critical moment in American history became a really important part of our holiday tradition. There are multiple sparks that can spark your curiosity along the way, but it was really the encyclopedia and the fourth-grade classroom, both things happening inside and outside of the classroom. When I look back on what I'm doing now, working with people of different ages, working inside and outside the classroom, it's all bottled in this little exper-- in the little snow globe of this [chuckles] snowstorm in the mid-1990s.
Lisa: I think from the beginning, it just cracked it open, and it's not about how much knowledge your parents had about, as you said, the three branches of government. I think people can be really intimidated that they don't know. We're on this bad cycle of stepping away from engagement when we need to be stepping in. I had a little bit of that a-ha, Julie. When we first met, it was six years ago, maybe even seven years ago, when I was doing the work on the designing the president, which was this curricula that I created through a design and futures lens to help young voters feel agency in voting.
You and I worked together on some partnerships and bringing it there and to teachers. I had this really interesting realization. This is 2020, and I remember presidential election years were the years where civic teachers had it made. They're like, "This is going to be awesome. We're going to do our own mock election, and we're going to have people be the role of the president and all of the election that stuff that goes." It was very experiential because it was happening.
Given where we are right now in political discourse or lack of or the partisanship or how toxic it's become, I saw all these teachers backing away from it, like, "No. No, can't touch that, can't do that." This curricula that we designed and you helped me bring forward was nonpartisan. It was very objective. It was very much like, "Okay, let's look at the definition of the president and the Constitution.
Teachers were so thankful to have a way in that didn't necessarily put them at risk for some of the blowback, but that was a huge a-ha moment for me about how much the context had shifted about how hard it was for teachers to be able to-- to do some of the basics. I'm just so grateful for you expanding how we think about it so that we're not stuck in this "Do you know or not know? If you don't know, then you can't get involved."
Julie: First of all, I just want to say we put so much of the weight of civic preparation on educators, who I refer to as guardians of the Constitution, and I genuinely believe that they are. They do incredible work, but it was never thought that K-12 educators, that common school was going to be the only institution that created citizens who were prepared for self-government.
Actually, the idea for civic parenting is 250 years old. It used to be called a little R, republican motherhood, and the idea was that mothers, how women could continue to-- because women had somewhat expanded roles during the American Revolution, because that's the reality of war is that women get expanded roles because their husbands and sons are out on the battlefields.
After the American Revolution was like, "What role do women have?" It was this concept of Republican motherhood that mothers were to educate primarily at the time their sons for constitutional self-government. The latter-day version of that is civic parenting, and it's for moms and dads, caregivers, aunts and uncles. It's really for anyone who has a young person in their lives that they care about. It's this idea that civic learning doesn't just happen in schools. It happens in schools with less frequency than it should.
If your expectation is it only happens in elementary school a couple of times, middle school once or twice, and high school once or twice, and you expect that to be durable, you're setting yourself up for failure. The first institution of civic life a human being experiences is the tiny little government of the home. Actually, before that, they're too young to understand this, is the government of the self. It's the self, the family, the neighborhood, the community, the town, the county, the state, the federal government and then the global context in which we live.
Families actually do civics in the home without even necessarily realizing they're doing it when you set rules, when you tell your kids to clean up after dinner, that's civics. When you set rules, that's civics. When you talk about how we speak to each other, and we speak to each other with civility, you're building civics muscles. Part of what I'm trying to do with civic parenting is, yes, parents should do more.
Also, to get parents to realize they're doing more than they might even recognize on a daily basis to build civic muscles, and that if you actually do it with a little bit more intention, you can really move the needle for your children. I also think that it's good for parents, too, because for a lot of parents, this is re-sparking their curiosity and interest, and I think about this through a couple of different examples.
One, I think about the fact that I haven't taken a math course since I was required to take one in college, and I took-- [chuckles] I think I took statistics for non-math and science majors, which is exactly the low bar [chuckles] mathematics that I wanted as a political science major. I'm getting ready to have to do math homework with my daughter, so I have to do a refresh on math.
My husband, who's a doctor, similarly hasn't taken a civics course since high school. He likes to tell the story about before our first date. He watched Schoolhouse Rock videos in case I quizzed him on anything related to the Constitution and American history. He needed a refresh. Our children and our grandchildren are such wonderful incentives to address gaps in our knowledge.
I also think my children have been such a huge mover for me in my own human improvement, get better control over my emotions to help them regulate their emotions. Young people can be a really great inspiration for motivating ourselves to do more in the civic space. It's absolutely intergenerational. Yes, this benefits the children in our lives, but it benefits us, too. It brings us more fully into civic life. Particularly at a time where I think people are so lonely, it actually solves for more than just the civic know-how or civic knowledge gap. It also solves for loneliness, particularly after the pandemic are super isolated.
Lisa: Yes, I couldn't agree more. There's so much of that in civic parenting that is just so universal when you think about what parents want for their children. They want them to be developing humans. They want them to build friendships. They want them to thrive. They want them to learn how to recover from setback and to feel loved and to love back.
That's, I think, the frame of what you're offering people is an opportunity to think of this as all of this is civic practice. We opened up this season with just a wonderful conversation with another one of my civic heroes, Eric Liu, who has a new book coming out-
Julie: He does.
Lisa: -called Live Like a Citizen, and it's very similar in just breaking it down to these practices, learning to see, learning to listen, learning to feel, learning to join, learning to imagine. I think, Julie, you're just giving another lens of that coming from a different perspective, which I just think is so powerful. I love this idea that it starts with the self and the family.
My kids are now out of the house officially, although they're never out of my heart. Sometimes, when I think back to things I wish I did just a little differently, it might have been slightly more emphasis on that civic engagement component to what it means for all of us to contribute to a house that is going to thrive and to think of that as practice for self-governing. I just think it's a really powerful model.
Julie: I will say that my-- I talk in terms of good citizenship for my daughters. They're two and a half and five. We're talking fairly basic things here, really young children, but if they clean up their mess, I always say, "You get a good citizen award for your participation." My civic parenting co-host, Lindsey Cormack, who has a wonderful book called How to Raise a Citizen, we talk about this all the time.
When you take your child to a playground, which we do really a lot when they're toddlers, because they need to get outside and need to play. There's trash on the playground, and they're like, "Well, whose responsibility is it to pick it up?" I'm like, "Well, we're using the playground, so today it's going to be our responsibility," and you talk and that you're starting to help them understand the common good and our shared responsibility.
Again, all of this is cumulative. You use a lighter-weight vocabulary. You just start using this a little bit with your children, and then as they get older, you can start talking about more sophisticated issues and use more sophisticated lens for how you talk about this. Really, the first step is just understanding that shared spaces are shared by our community, and what is a community? They're also learning about being a good neighbor because they have a mother that has to say hello to everyone, and then when we take a walk around the neighborhood and just learning about human interaction.
Human interaction, again, is a building block of civic life because human beings are naturally social creatures. That's why we've actually ultimately come together to govern as a group rather than just trying to do it all separately on our own. Those little things, those are the building blocks of civic learning and civic life. Again, it isn't-- don't be so reductive. They need to know the name of every president who's ever been in office. That's interesting trivia to have. They're important moments that happened during various presidential administrations that help us understand who we are today. I don't want to discount the importance of knowing about our past.
They really just need to understand, first and foremost, their role. Then, a greater appreciation for our history and our past. A lot of times, that storytelling of people in the past who have used their voice, their agency, their values, their virtues to advance a cause of liberty or equality or justice for the betterment of more people.
Those stories become really powerful and inspiring, and that's another way that we, not just incorporating the language of civics into our home but also being really intentional in the stories that we tell to our children. Thankfully, there is a growing collection of history and civics books starting at the board book level for children, and we're actually hoping at the center to contribute more of those.
Lisa: It's such a great reminder about just how local these conversations can start and the modeling can start. Another guest we're having on the season is Evan Weissman, who is the founder of Warm Cookies of the Revolution. He literally did create a board book called Vote Every Day, and asking those same questions that you were having with your young daughters, like, "Whose playground is this? Whose bench is this? Are we paying taxes? Then I think it's ours. Whose responsibility is to keep up this playground so that everybody can play on it?"
I just think it's a great reminder that there is no "they." They'll do it, and we just cede power and we offload responsibility when it's us. We can do it. Julie, I've heard you tell another great story about your local playground and how you modeled engagement for your girls about making sure that it was a place that you could play after a big tree disrupted it, and I wonder if you could share that great story.
Julie: Yes. Finally, this playground is under construction. We're really lucky where we live. There are lots of playgrounds in and near neighborhoods, and we have one that's a three-minute walk within our neighborhood to get to. When my older daughter was younger, we used to play in it all the time, and unfortunately, a very large tree fell into the middle of the playground. While they removed the tree, they didn't remove the slide and play structures that were impacted. It really was no longer safe for the children to play, and this was devastating for my older daughter, my younger daughter. This has been going on for so long, didn't have the chance to play on the playground before this happened.
We started talking to-- lamenting to neighbors on walks about, "It's such a bummer about this playground. My kids loved it. It was such an asset for us and other families." I actually have a neighbor who lives behind me, who's a former elected official, and he's like, "Let's write to the county. Let's talk about getting the playground rebuilt." That happened. We ultimately just actually pretty recently, and this is where I involved my daughters. They sent options that we could vote on for what the playground would look like.
With my daughters, including my two-year-old, I brought out on my computer the plans, and we talked through what was exciting to them. I used their feedback to vote on the plans, and they actually ended up pulling from a couple of different proposals for what will happen. It's going to be really cool. The playground is supposed to reopen in mid-November, and I'm really excited for the girls to see the connection between, "Hey, you voted on having this particular play structure here." You had agency and choice, and for them to see the connection between those things.
I think it's really important for kids. In particular, it drives my husband nuts with this. I let my kids win a certain percentage of negotiations because I want them to know that their voice can have impact. When the stakes are low enough, it's like, "Okay, you can put your toys away tomorrow morning," instead of before you go to bed, and he's like, "No, they should put their toys away now."
I'm like, "It's a bigger lesson. Bear with me." It's as seem I want them to see that they can have impact in the world that's incredibly empowering to them. I'm very excited both to have the playground back because it's such an important space for the kids to play, but also for them to see the choices that they made reflected in the ultimate outcome.
Lisa: Oh, that's so cool. Well, you'll have to show us the final of what that playground is going to look like, which is, again, I think speaks to the civic imagination that Eric talks about in his book and the agency and even that last example of allowing your kids to win sometimes in argument about the power of compromise, that there's not always one person that's right, that this is a negotiation, and regardless of whether they put the toys to that night or the next day, there's still love. The bigger mission is like, "Hey, we've got to figure out how we're going to work together, but let's be clear that there's always a larger goal about what we're after."
I just love that story of the playground. It's a theme we're hearing a lot in this season of Civic Futures. Eric also told a great story about the creation of one of Manhattan's newest parks, or it's really New York City because it's in Brooklyn, called "Gotham Park," which started by a mom who just noticed that there was an area under the Brooklyn Bridge that was just fenced off, blighted out, just filled with construction material, not being used. She said, like, "Why not? When I look at that, I see an opportunity for a vibrant place for people to gather, for skateboarders to skateboard, for people to connect."
I think it took her about five years, but it was that slow organizing and almost accidentally falling into it. Like, "Oh, wait. I can present to the council? I can talk to neighbors about that? I can build coalitions with the with the skateboard folks? How empowering that is." Then it comes to life, and you're like, "Oh, this is incredible." I just think we need more of that in more places, and I think that's so much of the work that you're doing at the Constitution Center, but also in this podcast for more people.
Julie: Yes, it's so critical, and that's such a powerful example because there's going to be tens of thousands of people who ultimately benefit from her engagement to get this to become a playground. I think it's just such a powerful story when people who are not politicians, government actors, can make an impact, and it will impact generations of families who get to make use of that playground. It's a wonderful story.
Lisa: Well, I know speaking of politicians, one of the things that you do at the National Constitution Center is host politicians, talking about why civics matters, why the Constitution matters, and I saw that there was a program coming up of a national program among I think it's really with governors who are trying to model how to disagree better. I think you have Governor Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania, who is going to be in conversation with-- Is it Governor Cox?
Julie: Yes, from Utah.
Lisa: From Utah coming up. I wonder if you could share a little bit about this, because all this ground-up work is critical, and I think it's also important to recognize that politicians are trying to do some of this work as well.
Julie: One of the priorities that the center has is bringing people from across the ideological spectrum together to talk about-- we have a great resource called "The Interactive Constitution" where we bring conservative and legal conservative and progressive rather constitutional scholars together to talk about areas where they agree in interpreting the Constitution and then areas in which they disagree, and it's done in a really civil, nuanced way.
We don't often bring politicians. We tend to work more with scholars and practitioners, but this is a partnership with the organization Disagree Better, and the Knight Foundation, bringing the governor of Pennsylvania and the governor of Utah together to talk about what unites us is so critically important and how we can disagree both with greater civility, but also disagreement. Friction is not inherently a bad thing. I know you feel this way, Lisa.
Oftentimes, disagreement actually leads to-- we can sometimes think about compromise and only think about compromise is the parts that you lose and not the parts that we sharpen and make better. That's the premise behind Disagree Better, not just how you disagree in a more civil way, but actually how you make disagreement more productive.
So we're really pleased to be able to partner with two wonderful organizations to bring that conversation to Philadelphia. They've done it in a couple of other places. They actually think had a packed house at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC. I think part of why this is so resonant with people is we are craving more civility in our public discourse. We're craving a reflection of virtue in our public servants. Disagree Better is really trying, I think, to model that at the very highest level. Like I said, we're really pleased to be a part of it.
Lisa: Oh, I think it's so exciting and so important and what an opportunity for young people, but really, everyone to watch, and notice what went well when they disagreed better? [chuckles] Not just looking for that sound bite to create more division. I remember even, this is somewhat similar when we were creating-- designing the president curricula, and one of the things we had them do was identify ahead of time the leadership qualities that mattered to them in a president based on the job description, like, "Hey, there's a job description in the Constitution. Who do you think will do that job well?"
What matters to you both leadership and personal and background, and then we had them watch real-life debate clips. We picked ones that were pretty much apples-to-apples, like, "What do you want to say to the American people, not on a policy?" We had them reflect on, like, "What did you hear in that?" After they spent that time thinking about what they cared about, all of a sudden, they were hearing different things, like, "Oh, I didn't realize that this person was so religious, and that was a big part of them" or, "I didn't hear that this background was so critical."
It's just giving some more time to slow down and pay attention to people doing it well. I just really appreciate that this is a partnership that you're supporting and an opportunity because if we only focus on the bad, then those are the only things we're paying attention to versus where we can do it better.
Julie: Well, and that's where you see a lot of people deciding just to withdraw. I often talk about the fact that there's a difference between civic and political participation and civic life and political life. Politics, I think, right now, it's very polarized. I think a lot of people are turned off to participating in politics. That doesn't mean you have to also withdraw from civic life, which is broader than political life. There's overlap, but civic life is bigger than just voting.
In fact, you can be quite civically engaged even if you don't vote. You didn't hear me say that, but it's true. You can be civically engaged and not vote if you feel that there's no good options. Now I would suggest that you should be involved in voting, [chuckles] particularly at the primary level, if you would, some better options. Actually, civic life is it's talking to neighbors.
If you see an elderly neighbor sending your able-bodied teenage son or daughter out to shovel that person's driveway and walkway, you see somebody drop something, and you help them pick it up. What you're doing on the playground, it's picking up trash. It's going to a museum or civic institution and convening with other people and talking. That's civic life.
Political life is policymaking, and sometimes we want to go into policymaking, but at this moment in time, that feels entrenched political warfare, and a lot of people are withdrawing. I would just say, I think there are many rational reasons for wanting to withdraw from political life that I don't think apply to be totally withdrawing from civic life and to think about those things as, again, overlapping in some instances but actually distinct from one another.
Lisa: Yes, I think it's a really important distinction, and certainly we're trying to highlight all of the ways that you can show up and do things that are productive for yourselves, as you're saying, for your family, for your community. Another person that comes to mind that we're featuring is Shamichael Hallman, who is the director of Civic Health for the Urban Libraries Council, who's trying to use libraries as a way of revitalizing communities and reminding them of the beautiful diversity and opportunity.
A big part of that is he was talking about was creating meetup groups and connections with others that it's just-- he said normally, you go to a library and your first instinct is to go, "Shh." He's like, "No." [laughs] Like, "Let's use it for actual conversation and dialogue."
Julie: What he's doing is so near and dear to my heart because, actually, the community-based civic project that I did in law school was actually through the public library. It was a partnership with my law school at William & Mary in Colonial Williamsburg and the public library system there. We brought different generations together to co-learn, and libraries are absolutely civic institutions. In some places, public library is the only civic institution where people can come and convene and speak and learn together. If you've ever looked at a library schedule, there's a whole lot more happening at your public library than checking out books.
I also think libraries are sites for curiosity and learning and access to books and all of that wonderful stuff. Yes, totally agree. There's lots of things happening at libraries that are quite loud and intentionally so. People should definitely take a closer look at what's happening there, and we're really thinking about as a larger civic institution how we can help libraries and other smaller civic institutions that are just pillars of their community do more to reach more people and invite them in.
Definitely, don't discount your local public library. That is a space-- young families go there because-- the thing about having young kids is you're always-- you got to get them out of the house because otherwise, they're hanging from the light fixtures. We also need to invite in teenagers and young adults and adults without children. There's tens of millions of adults without children. We need to make sure that there's space for them in civic institutions as well, and civic institutions are thinking really creatively about how to invite them in.
That's my Substack post for this week. Trivia night is not trivial. It's actually quite important, this idea of bringing people together in community, and the learning is lightweight. It's the bringing together, the joy, the connectivity, and also this sense that our civic institutions, our museums, our libraries, our historic sites are for you. They are for the public benefit, and that means you, all of you, and that we have to figure out how we invite more people in.
Lisa: So powerful. Shamichael also said something that he used to talk about when he's trying to convince people of all the great stuff having at libraries. He would say, "More than books," but now he said-- he doesn't want to make books feel less than, so he says, "Books and more," which I love that-
Julie: I love it.
Lisa: -reframe, too. Also, how great is it to get a library card? You're five years old, and it gives you a portal to the world. That was, I think, my first entry into agency and choice of this powerful library card.
Julie: Just to give you a sense of how nerdy my friend group is, all of us had to post when our young children got their library cards, and there was definitely a sense amongst some of my friends of-- some of them got their newborns library cards-
Lisa: Oh, my gosh.
Julie: I was like, "That's for you. You did that for you." My daughters were about two and a half when they got their first library cards, and you got to take the photo op and then they go to the libraries, and they get to be the ones to scan and pick it out. It's a thing amongst my community of fellow civics and law nerds to get library cards for kids.
The library was such an important place. For me, my parents actually got divorced when I was really young. Going to the public library after school and having that quiet time in the stacks was really a haven for me and my siblings, particularly at the moment of rupture in their marriage of calm and just-- to me, it's such an important institution for all people.
Lisa: Yes, a true safe space. You're highlighting something that I'm hoping to also uplift and I certainly have done in various Civic Futures and civic imagination events, which I think so often we rush to try to create something new, like, "Oh, yes. That's an important--" Sometimes, it's like, "No, no, just fortify something that's awesome." Just go to your library, tell your library that they're awesome, build on something that's already working.
I love that you have a community of fellow civic nerds. That makes me so happy to envision that. Julie, maybe speaking on that theme, we're definitely going to send your Substack to our listeners, but what are some other favorite books that you think are just great opportunities to ignite that civic spark?
Julie: Yes, I'm going to give you a bunch of books. All-time favorites because of who I am and what I do, Akhil Amar has two wonderful books that I think everyone should read about the Constitution. He has a great one called America's Constitution: A Biography and the Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction. These are books that are always on my desk, and I always return to them. I have to do a lot of reading for my job because I also co-host Are We The People podcast and moderate some of our town hall programs.
I'm reading a lot of books right now. A lot of books came out around America's 250th, about the Declaration of Independence, and there are so many wonderful books. We published a book at the center called The Promise of America, where we brought some of the nation's leading scholars and thinkers together to reflect on enduring American ideals, have to have our own [chuckles] book on the list.
A book that I absolutely loved, it's featured on the Civic Parenting podcast but also could have totally been on our We the People podcast is a book called This Land Is Your Land by Beverly Gage, which is a really-- how you can teach 250 years of American history through the great American road trip. It's such a wonderful book. It begins with Beverly's civic spark, which actually is tied to the bicentennial in 1976. She was actually around the same age as my daughter. She was four.
I loved the book because I thought it was so interesting. Then I loved the podcast episode because a lot of my family and friends traveled by car this summer with their children, and the number of them who said I was so much more intentional about picking stops along the way where there was a moment in history happened there and I got--
One, I had to learn about it so that I could tell my kids about it, and that was really enriching and fun, and then just for me, I think, really gratifying to see the payout, as you know, people shift their practice to actually use time in the car to talk about the history that's happening. Obviously, my co-host on the Civic Parenting podcast, Lindsey Cormack, has a wonderful book called How to Raise a Citizen.
I love The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, has been a book that I think a lot about. Then I just have too many children's books, and I'm always looking for books for them with very strong female protagonists. It doesn't have to be a civics book. Actually, one of my favorite civics books is called Brave Charlotte, which is about a sheep. My younger daughter's name is Charlotte, which is why I have four copies of this book because everyone bought this book for her [laughs] when she was born.
It's about this really brave sheep who goes her own way, and the rest of the herd is very, like, "Tut-tut-tut." Literally, "Tut-tut-tut" at her all the time. Then the shepherd falls and breaks his leg and it's the middle of the night, and someone needs to go. Someone, some animal needs to go and alert someone to help the shepherd, and brave Charlotte, who has charted her own course, is, of course, the one who's brave enough to go and help him.
We talk about so many civics concepts with our daughters through the vehicle of this book, and because my daughter's name is Charlotte, she wants to read it literally every night. Again, just in life, you're doing civics, and you don't realize it. When you're reading children's books, a lot of times, they're stories, but they're stories about people who are impacting change, and you can absolutely apply a civics lens to that, even if the author didn't write it with that intention.
If your children feel an attachment either because their name is in it or they like the animal or the character, roll with it. With all learning, the most important thing is that young people see it as joyful, something that you like doing. That's how you make sure that learning is lifelong. It's joyful, and you see it modeled by the adults in your life.
Lisa: Incredible. Julie, you are such an inspiration. I'll maybe end where I started, which is really a civic doula of joy and possibility. Thank you for all that you're doing. Thank you for modeling what it means to be a lifelong learner, to take your passion and continue to fuel curiosity, and just every way that you are continuing to take our important history of the Constitution and making it relevant and more accessible to more people. I'm just so grateful for you and the work you're doing, and thank you for being on How We Future.
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Lisa: I love talking to Julie about the work she's doing to connect constitutional history with the questions families are navigating today. When we include our children in conversation about places they care about or get to see how a community works through a problem, they begin to understand that democracy is something people do together. I'm already learning so much from our Civic Futures season. I hope you are, too.
Make sure to go back and listen to previous episodes to learn more about how to make a real civic change with tools you already have. You can learn more about Julie's work at the National Constitution Center and listen to Civic Parenting, her podcast with Lindsey Cormack, for more ideas on bringing civic learning into family life. Let me know what you thought of this episode by leaving a comment. I love hearing from you. I'm Lisa K. Solomon. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next week.
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Links from the episode:
Resources recommended by Julie:
America’s Constitution: A Biography and The Bill of Rights Primer by Akhil Reed Amar
This Land is Your Land by Beverly Gage
How to Raise a Citizen by Lindsey Cormack
The Anxious Generation Jonathan Haidt
Brave Charlotte by Anu Stohner
