On Friday, November 5, 2021, I hosted a zoom meeting with members from my high school’s We the People team in preparation for their district competition.

 

The We the People program is a national competition established by Congress with a goal to increase civic education across the United States. The teams are six units, each focused on different ideas and having different questions to answer. Each unit has prompts to answer in a 4-minute prepared response, then have six minutes for a panel of judges (composed of lawyers, judges, professors, and politicians) to ask them anything they want related to the questions or responses. Last year, as a senior in high school, I was in Unit 1 of East Kentwood High School’s We the People team, placing 23rd in the nation. I immediately knew that I wanted to continue helping the team in any way that I could, and I quickly became a coach that meets with specific units in order to help get them to the next level of completion. I typically meet with a unit every week for around an hour and I decided to cover one of our recent sessions.

 

I began the zoom session by seeing how their weeks have been and just having general conversations. Then, I had them read their current 4-minute response for districts and gave them some more feedback both on content and presentation. As we get closer to districts, I will make more and more of an emphasis on their presence, tone, and inflection. After this, I began asking questions about their 4-minute to challenge their ideas and positions. Some conversations that followed questions included when is revolution justified and why did the colonists believe that it was reasonable to limit suffrage to those who possessed at least some property?

 

I really enjoy working with the group and helping the program in any way possible. I was very fortunate to get to use one of my personal endeavors as an event towards my personal development portfolio. Working with the program over the last year and a half has changed me both intellectually and personally. Obviously, I learned a wealth of knowledge during my time competing, but I also improved my collaboration and leadership abilities. Additionally, over the summer, I worked hand in hand with the program's director and our main teacher, Justin Robbins in order to structurally improve the program, decrease waste, and increase our overall effectiveness and productivity. This year’s team is already in a significantly better place than mine was one year ago due to the immense structural transformation that occurred. Now getting to help these units has allowed me to teach and encourage others in order to improve their civic education and make them more competitive. It is for this reason that  I plan on continuing coaching at least throughout my years in college.