Democracy Day at FWCD

Seven years ago, we began a Summer Fellowship Program that funds teachers for collaborative work they do to create new curricular initiatives. We have seen great things from the resulting work across all three divisions. The Summer Fellowships have led to a complete revamp of the Student Council in the Lower School. Teachers doing that collaborative work in the summer made significant changes in how we teach grammar in the Middle School. In the Upper School, a particularly noteworthy result emerging from the work of faculty from each curricular department was the Senior Capstone Projects, an offering that stands out more than five years later as a powerful learning opportunity for so many FWCD seniors. 

In Summer 2023, another noteworthy fellowship effort brought together faculty and staff from all three divisions, our Admission Office, and the library to develop what we are calling a “Democracy Day” for students. Led by History Department Chair Colin Douglas ’06, the group included Debby Arnold, Sarah Blan, Tammy Craddock, Jennifer Giroir, Sarah Hollingshead, David Hoppe, Shari Lincoln, Samantha McMillan, Sara Teegarden, and Tammy Wolford. Their mission, evolving over two days of workshopping, emerged as “to foster democracy, promote civility, and empower future citizens.” The group’s vision for the day is to have age-appropriate programming that is student-centered, student-driven, and student-led, allowing for the immersive exchange of ideas. They want participants to engage in civil and scholarly conversations and leave the day with a sense of direction.

Over the course of those two days, the group crafted the day’s mission, core characteristics, and practical ideas. They then put together a proposal of a few variations on their theme and a couple of different ways of addressing their goal. Colin brought those ideas to the Curriculum Committee and was given the green light to continue fleshing out the fellowship team’s ideas. 

Now, we have a day in September on the calendar, and each division has a Democracy Day Lead (from the above-listed committee) who is working with their respective Division Heads to figure out what the structure of the day should look like for their students. Their goal is to involve students from the Upper School in brainstorming activities and modeling the best of democracy at work: civil discourse and good citizenship. The next phase in the process is for the faculty to work with interested students in some design work for FWCD’s first Democracy Day and then to come together again as a committee in the summer with the information gathered from this design day to finalize the Democracy Day activities. 

We can be excited about our school having so many engaged and committed faculty members who have once again gone above and beyond in another curricular design process and to now include Upper School students in an essential part of the work. Most exciting, though, is the opportunity our students will have next September to be learning more about the essence of democracy and to be reminded why the great experiment of the United States of America continues to be a source of such pride and patriotism.