Northwest celebrated Civics Day on November 3 this year - which just happened to coincide with Election Day. In addition to allowing students to engage meaningfully and advocate on current social issues, this Day of Learning is closely intertwined with the Humanities courses on campus.
"As one of several capstones of our Humanities curriculum, Civics Day enables students to bring their Humanities research and critical analyses to bear on issues that matter to them, in the service of our larger community," explains Humanities Department Chair, Curtis Hisyasu. Through faculty-guided projects, 8th and 12th grade students bring historical, socio-political, and cultural lenses to their presentations on current social issues.
The day kicked off with immersive simulations for each grade level, including Elections & Misinformation Escape Rooms (11th and 12th grades) and an Athenian Democracy Simulation (9th grade) - an extension of the Humanities 9 course that involved three social classes from the very first democracy engaged in robust debate around contemporary social issues like war, agriculture, and water distribution.
Over morning and afternoon sessions, Middle School students led workshops to inform, educate, and motivate their peers on a range of social and political issues.
Meanwhile, our Upper School students hosted a series of workshops that engaged diverse contemporary local, regional, national, and global issues. Examples included:
- How to Undemocratically Rig an Election: Mail-in Ballot Edition
- Profit Over People: The disproportionate impacts of AI data center boom
- The Invisible Plague of Elections and Voting: Social Media and Misinformation
- Department Health and Human Disservices: Who’s harmed and who benefits?
- The Moral Burdens of Pluralism:The Cases of the Transgender in Sports and Race-Based Gerrymandering
- You’re Wrong; It's Happening: Project 2025’s Invasion of Our Education System and Student Autonomy
- Click Here to Become a Man
- The Tiger, The “Witch,” and the Poll Booth: US Intervention in Foreign Affairs
- Lake Ontario or Lake America? Exploring the Powers of the Executive Branch Through National Landmarks and Monuments
During Civics Day, academic inquiry and principled leadership come together. We are glad to offer our student leaders a tangible opportunity to put their learning and critical thinking to use for the sake of our community and our democracy.
Senior presenters found compelling and vivid ways to present arguments to their peers.
For instance, the session "Now, No One Controls Their Body: Individual Rights in Post-Roe America" examined how multiple intersectional factors - including medical bias and geographic location - can impact access to abortion access and care. Isla O. (Class of '27) gave an overview of Zurawski vs. State of Texas (2023), noting that, “These decisions including these women’s state of residence has impacted their ability have babies - now and in the future."
James P. (Class of '27) invited the audience to contemplate disinformation and the challenges facing mail-in voters, including around registering to vote. “Imagine trying to get a drivers license, and all the little issues that can interfere with it," he said. "That’s sort of what is happening here with getting registered to vote.”
Caroline J., Simon C., and Thomas B. (Class of '27) utilized an interactive Kahoot! poll to quiz their audience on recent political campaigns and murky campaign financing in their session "Money > Merit: How Today's Elites Influence Tomorrow's Elections." Explaining the origins of SuperPACs, Thomas B noted how they could be traced back to “so-called 'soft money' which was a very loose category used primarily for party-building activities."
Civics Day is one of the many ways we put Northwest’s commitment to social justice into action. We want our students not only to understand the social issues that shape our world, but also to recognize that they have the power and responsibility to make a difference.
Other presenters dedicated their research deep dives to ethical debates surrounding social media, tech, and artificial intelligence (AI).
Brendan J. (Class of '27) illustrated how one of his team's research sources discussed how AI can manipulate its own performance on tasks based on specified parameters. He described how researchers created a chemistry test containing instructions that anyone who got more than 50% of answers correct would fail the test. "AI agents deliberately marked responses wrong based on these instructions," he finished, concluding that this proves "that AI is somewhat self aware."
Joanna L., Nik L., Rebecca N., and Daniel L. (Class of '27) invited the audience to scrutinize the content and flaws in sample social media posts in their session "The Invisible Plague of Elections and Voting: Social Media and Misinformation." Gave audience the opportunity to scrutinize the content and flaws with sample social media posts. Their research focused on how social media algorithms create echo chambers through content that complements a user's existing political stance - which minimizes one's ability to engage with contradictory content.
"Our Humanities courses strive to provide a rigorous, interdisciplinary, academic experience for students, where they are introduced to high-level scholarly debates, critical methods, and writing strategies that will serve them in college and beyond," says Hisayasu. "But we also take very seriously the NWS mission to prepare students to act as leaders with integrity and the confidence. During Civics Day, academic inquiry and principled leadership come together, and we are glad to offer our student leaders a tangible opportunity to put their learning and critical thinking to use for the sake of our community and our democracy."
Catalina Martinez, Director of DEI, agrees. "Engagement in social issues equips our students with the necessary skills to make a difference in our community and beyond," she notes.
Connecting Civics Day and student engagement to Northwest's commitment to social justice, she adds, "Ultimately, we want our students to have an understanding of issues, the ability to take positions backed by facts, and use their voice in ways that make the most sense to them: - including, researching a topic and educating our community."
