Civics Unplugged: Teaching Students about Civics in a Unique Way
At Grace Church School, there are many clubs and opportunities that students can sign up for and choose to do. 
One of the newer additions to that list of activities is Civics Unplugged. Civics Unplugged is a brand new organization and initiative that was created by a Grace parent, Jeffrey Silverman, where students from all over the five boroughs and New Jersey come together one Sunday each month to discuss a topic in discussion groups that are led by students. Some of the topics that have been discussed include voter rights and immigration. The format of the sessions is that there is a guest speaker to speak about the topic and provide insight on current issues surrounding that topic for about ten minutes . Then, students break out into groups and discuss what they heard and come up with questions about the issue to ask the speaker. Finally, there is a debrief and a time to ask the guest speaker questions.
I sat down for an interview with the Founder of Civics Unplugged, Jeffrey Silverman, to learn more about why he created it and how he would pitch it to students to join in future years.
Q: Why/How did you create Civics Unplugged?
Civics Unplugged is an organization that provides a safe, engaging environment for high school students to come together and learn and share their opinions on important topics that affect them and their world today. The idea came about during the last presidential campaign when during conversations with my kids about issues such as the Wall and immigration, I realized that they weren’t learning basic civics in schools and so I looked into other programs to help them learn civics and there was really nothing, so I took the opportunity as an entrepreneur to create Civics Unplugged out of different programs my kids have been apart of.
Q: What is your pitch to students about why they should join?
Civics Unplugged is similar to mock trials and debate club in the sense that it’s for people who are passionate about politics, who are passionate about this country and world to be able to share their opinions with their peers and at the same time learn about other people’s opinions. I think at Civics Unplugged we want people to be better listeners and learn how to respect and understand what other people are saying.
Q: How do you think it has gone so far?
I think it has gone well so far. I think that the mission continues to be the same and the feedback we have gotten from all parties about how to tweak the model has helped. We have made some changes over the last few sessions and will continue to make more changes as feedback warrants.
Q: What do you hope students get out of it?
We are trying to personalize Civics as well as we can. We want students to see how these issues affect them and their families personally and then use that as a platform to understand how it affects their city, state, and country.
Q: What would you do differently in Future Years?
I think what we are trying to do is figure out how to grow this. Right now we have 11 schools and about 65 kids in the program. It is expensive to run this program so what we are trying to figure out is how the reach more students through Civics Unplugged.
Q: How do you foresee the expansion of Civics Unplugged in the future in the city and around the country?
I think what we are trying to do is think about how do we work with other programs around the country to expand the reach of Civics Unplugged. For example, maybe we will partner and do a big conference in DC. I think what we are looking to do is how do we do a big conference similar to a Model UN and Mock trial and partner with other Civic Organizations around the country.
Follow @CivicsUnplugged on Instagram and Twitter and go to civicsunplugged.org to find out more