With my vacation out of the way (though not the blogging of the vacation, yet), I’m now realizing the things that I’ve been meaning to blog but haven’t gotten to yet. One is a very exciting opportunity in mid-November to provide a lesson in democracy to some visiting students from Charlotte.
A few weeks ago, Charlene Willard with the city’s Community Services department put me in touch with teacher Katy Field, Ninth Grade Class Dean of Providence Day School in Charlotte. Katy told me she was considering bringing her 9th grade class to Raleigh for a few days so that they could see how our democratic process works. Charlene told Katy about all the ways citizens can get involved through Raleigh’s unique Citizens Advisory Councils and Katy became determined to make CACs a big part of her program.
One thing led to another and I was helping Katy plan her visit. Many of the details are being sorted out, but 160 of the school’s 9th graders will spend a few days in Raleigh, one of which will devoted to CACs and how they facilitate citizen participation in government. A number of present and former CAC leaders have agreed to share their war stories with these students, describing CACs and the victories and pitfalls they have experienced. A few of Raleigh’s city councilors have also agreed to participate.
The CAC portion will culminate with actual city councilors and CAC leaders participating in a mock city council session in which the students will bring an idea or request to the “council” and do their best to get it adopted. The real and pretend city councilors will then provide feedback and coaching on their efforts.
It will be some work for me to help put this together with Katy. I’ll have to take the day off of work and the remuneration I get as RCAC chair (that is … ah, nothing) won’t cover this particular event. Crazy as it sounds, though, I’m motivated just by thinking what a wonderful opportunity this is to engage young people in the political process, as well as the thought of how awesome I would’ve thought this would’ve been had I been given the same opportunity in 9th grade.
I hope we can get some press interested in this as well, since more people need to know about the good work that Raleigh’s CACs are doing.
Very cool that you are doing this.