Democracy Summer! Week 1

A few notes on that great Harvard edX course taught by Danielle Allen

Hi all,

I recently completed the first week of We the People: Civic Engagement in a Constitutional Democracy. It looks like there are new cohorts starting every week (if you want to actually do the homework for “credit” and get a certificate), and you can sign up to audit anytime and go at your own pace. It took about 3 hours to get through week 1, and I think that included going through the recommended edX introduction to learn about how to navigate the course, do the problems or tests, etc.

The highlight was the interview with Terrence Roberts in 2018, one of the Little Rock 9 (or 10, actually). It’s the last 40 minutes or so of this YouTube - I think the first 20 minutes sets up the questions that are asked in the course.

10 Questions for Young Changemakers: Danielle Allen in Conversation with Terrence Roberts 2018

The Civil Rights era is sacred to me - as are all our global human quests for liberation from tyranny, abuse of power, bias and discrimination. I hope as you engage yourself with your own “Democracy Summer” you will allow yourself to be moved and inspired by these profound human experiences.

Here are the course objectives:

1. Tell a story of self that explains what you value and why, and the kind of communities and government in which you’d like to live;

2. Understand what it looks like when rights are not protected and how constitutional democracies are designed to secure rights;

3. Understand how and why U.S. democracy was built as it was, how it has changed over time, and what the levers of change are in this constitutional democracy;

4. Move from “I” to “We” in order to connect your own concerns with those of broader communities, with awareness of how a diversity of perspectives and experiences can be integrated in the story of what U.S. democracy has been historically and can be in the future;

5. Differentiate and choose among the civic roles available to people who live in a constitutional democracy;

6. Express your opinions in public forums and create your next step plans as a civic participant.

Here are some tidbits from week 1.

I was asked about my “first civic memory.” I referred to the memories of President Jimmy Carter:

Duty Vs. Self-Enhancement in the American Psyche | Psychology Today

Allen asked me to describe my identity and the identities I thought most and least about. I was also asked about values. This is my pass at “ordering” the values offered by Professor Allen. You may have your own ordering - but indeed, they’re all linked. Identity and values help us as we define the landscape we face, personally and collectively. We’re all on journeys of identity, belonging, wellness, and meaning. Values, purpose, and intention are quite important - as is regular self-reflection, adjustment, creation, and expression.

Professor Allen asks "10 questions” of the audience in the above video. Here they are, in order, and then below, in flow.

My immediate response to the questions was:

I think this set of questions assumes a "sense of self" and an ability to see and "diagnose" a problem, issue, or need. What if a problem is that a person doesn't have a sense of self and feels so overwhelmed by the world? So maybe a problem is that one's experience in America is so tangled and confusing that you just need a pathway to be clear, safe, less confused, etc. So helping people connect to and grow their sense of self and sense of community and belonging seems like an important aspect of this, no matter what issue you choose.

The first major assignment of the course was beginning to draft your own “changemaker biography.”

Now you can begin to draft your Changemaker Biography based on the 10 Questions. Go ahead and provide your answers again to questions 1 and 2 (please feel free to change your answers, if you’d like!), and then see if you can add an answer to the third question. How can you define or pursue your issues in ways that take the focus from “I” to “we” and to the question of what is good for a community or in the public interest?

Hope you can join in the class!

Warmly,

Ravi