Students take charge of learning with engaging debates and current events
Discover the transformative Civics elective at Scotia-Glenville Middle School, where 8th graders, guided by Mr. Gildersleve, dive into debates, current events, and community engagement. Through student-driven topics and critical thinking, this class shapes informed and active citizens of tomorrow.
Overview: by Cecelia Wilkinson
Civics is an elective in Scotia- Glenville Middle School that takes place in Mr.Gildersleve’s class. You get the chance to sign up in 7th grade and can take the class, in place of lunch in 8th grade in Semester 1. In Semester 2 you can take it during 9th period in place of a study hall.
In Civics one of the most important activities are debates. We educate on subjects of our choice and discuss our opinions on topics. We have talked about what the worst effect of 9/11 was and whether games or social media is more addictive. We are currently in the early stages for a future debate about how to improve our education at Scotia Glenville Middle School. The current 8th graders have set up a great system for your debates next year.
Knowledge of current events: by Jason Doyle
Civics class is very good for keeping up your knowledge about both what is happening in the world today and the events that are becoming history.
Every Civics class we start off by looking at important news articles and talking about them. Even though you learn things about the present in Social studies, Civics is a dedicated class to learn the present and what might happen in the future. The important things you wouldn’t know that are happening, you will know if you join Civics.
Preparation for being a good citizen: by Alexis Flickinger
Civics overall is a great way to take in daily news and the Scotia-Glenville Middle School is fortunate enough to have it as an elective course. We start off the beginning of our eighth grade lunch period just checking major events, what’s going on in the world, etc. Each day preps us for our rights and responsibilities for when we graduate, it provides us with knowledge of the government, our debates can help with and provide critical thinking skills that we’ll need, and even encourages kids in civics to take action, like providing community service towards the public. Our debates can also help and strengthen our communication skills, and it builds respect for peers and their different perspectives on the world around us.
We Get to Choose: by Violet Minick
In Civics, we cover a lot of different and diverse topics. We get to choose our topics that we talk about every day from news websites we find. We discuss the topics and news articles we find and they can also stem into debates, once we get enough information and have done enough research. We really enjoy being able to drive the discussions and debates to topics that we are interested in.
Wrapping it all up: by Cece Wilkinson, Billy Townshend, and James Gagliaradi
Civics is an amazing way to learn hands on, with a multitude of activities consisting of projects such as writing letters to elected officials, like Senators, the President, the House of Representatives, and even local government such as mayors. Doing debates against each other, and a mini-capstone project about a project of your choosing. Also at the beginning of the year we do a 9/11 project. All in all the way we learn in Civics is much different then in any other class.