Partner Spotlight:
Civic Spirit
Civic Spirit Days: How Museums and Courthouses Become Classrooms for Democracy
When most students have few opportunities to engage across lines of faith and identity, Civic Spirit is building bridges through shared civic experiences.
Civic Spirit Days reimagine field trips as student journeys through American democracy, history, and responsibility. In New York City, high school students gathered at the New York Historical, where they explored founding-era artifacts and documents. Participants shared personal objects reflecting family histories, and worked in teams to design interactive projects about the American story.
In Chicago, students visited the Chicago History Museum to see exhibits about civic leadership, including one about Abraham Lincoln and another about 1960s protest art. They heard from local leaders, including a mayor from a town outside Chicago, a police district council chair, a music producer, and a civic faith-based leader. Students workshopped and presented solutions to civic challenges important to them such as misinformation, polarization, and youth mental health.
Middle school programs have their own Civic Spirit Days in New York City and Chicago, and take place in the courthouse. Students observe a naturalization ceremony and meet different people working in the courthouse. They meet with a judge and lawyers, learn about the judicial system along with the role and responsibilities of being a citizen, and even do a mock trial.
Yael Steiner, Senior Director of Programs with Civic Spirit, said:
Action Plan: Led civic learning days including field trips and experiential education for middle and high schoolers.
Partner Since: 2022
Civic Spirit is a nonpartisan civic education organization that partners with faith-based schools and educators to prepare young people for engaged citizenship. Through shared learning experiences, students have the opportunity to practice dialogue, problem-solving, and bridge-building with a diverse network of peers. Civic Spirit Days are one of its key signature programs, bringing together students from Jewish, Catholic, and Christian schools for immersive civic learning experiences.
“When you’re actually creating a project together, it can really help connect people — more so than just talking about issues or getting to know one another.”
Students learning about these civic issues together is what makes these programs successful. Each Civic Spirit Day combines content learning, reflection and dialogue, and a creative project that asks students to collaborate across differences. Through this process, students move beyond simply discussing civic issues towards actual solutions with listening, problem-solving, and working together toward shared goals.
“Teachers shared that their students didn’t have many opportunities to meet kids from other backgrounds. Civic Spirit Days became a chance to bring students together for civic learning and collaboration.”
“We’ve really honed the program structure for how to create a really powerful experience — having elements of content, personal reflection and sharing, and then something that’s very active and creative, where they’re building something together.”
While Civic Spirit Days have created meaningful moments of connection, the team behind them sees the importance of creating opportunities for sustained engagement. It’s a one-day program that includes a lot of content in six hours.
“These experiences are very impactful, and a powerful experience like this can stick with you and shape your worldview. But there are also limits to what can be accomplished in one day.”
In the spirit of creating opportunities where students can build these meaningful relationships over time – Civic Spirit will be launching a new initiative supported by The Covenant Foundation: Building Civic Bridges. This new multi-year initiative will support schools in creating sustained partnerships that bring students together over the course of a school year. Students from partner schools will meet four to six times throughout the year to build relationships, identify a local civic issue they care about, and collaborate on ways to address it.
Ultimately, Civic Spirit Days are about making civic learning personal, historical, and real. By stepping into museums and courthouses, and through working with students of other faiths and backgrounds, students build relationships, empathy, and skills needed to participate in civic life.
Carla Arichavala, Development and Communications Manager with Civic Spirit, said:
“You can do the learning through a book, through a seminar, through a webinar. But having those experiences in real time is just so profound, and creating those spaces for students should be prioritized.”
By creating hands-on civic experiences, Civic Spirit is helping young people see themselves as active participants in democracy.
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