Coffeehouse Civics: A Remedy for the Jitters of Democratic Life

The first stories of the Internet celebrated online forums for public deliberation. We would all learn from one another, and "citizen journalists" would shape innovation in the news.

John Lewis: Grit in Service to Civic Life

John Lewis: Grit in Service to Public Life How Civic Grit Builds Community and Fights Failure Grit is a funny word. When someone says it, there’s almost always a guttural growl or a sneer added. When we say grit, we feel it. A small group of early-stage entrepreneurs had

Surviving Election 2020: How will you resist the "prophets of doom?"

Surviving Election 2020: How will you resist the “prophets of doom?” Frederick Douglass’s vision for the United States in 1869 can help. Like everyone else, I’m trying to distract myself from the headlines. I have always been serious about following the news as a concerned citizen, but the

#CivicEDchat: Is this Civic Education's "Sputnik Moment?"

Civic education has failed us. This, at least, is one of the explanations for the surprising election of Donald Trump. Stories since then have recorded the fall of one political norm after another. Clearly there are consequences to our patterns of disengagement. The forces pointing to the decline of civic

What Do You Know about Civic Grit?

Attending a weekend workshop to focus on starting a business, I dug deeper into something Congressman John Lewis calls “good trouble.” The question presented asked for a story about grit. Not all grit aims to serve our political community but there’s a category that does. We should all work