On April 24-25, the Williston “We the People” (WTP) students competed to take home the national title. After a second-place win in the state competition on Jan. 30, the Williston team was selected as a “wild card” to represent Massachusetts in the national competition.
Williston students competed against nearly 1,000 other students from across the country in what the Center for Civic Education calls a “national academic competition that gives students an opportunity to display the civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to effectively participate in our constitutional democratic republic through simulated congressional hearings.”
Williston’s WTP team consists of 31 students from the junior and senior classes. These students have been split into six different “units,” each focusing on different civic topics and questions. The unit teams are comprised of four to six students who have been working closely with teacher and WTP Advisor Peter Gunn, who, reached before the competition took place, had high hopes for the competitors going into nationals.
“I’m hoping that it is an exciting opportunity to step up to a challenge and that people embrace that as fully as they can,” he said. “I’m hoping that that leads to deeper learning because it’s the same basic units and the same basic questions for each unit in terms of the essential things.”
Gunn said he was also hoping that “for multiple people that it really becomes an opportunity to affirm their sort of scholarly excitement and engagement with intellectual things.”
Each unit team participated in two hearings throughout the competition. The hearings included a four-minute presentation answering a question the competitors prepared for. They were then asked an eight-minute series of follow-up questions by the judges, which they must answer to the best of their ability based on what they have studied.
The main topics of the Zoom hearings were philosophical and historical foundations of the American political system; creation of the Constitution; the relationship between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence; the values and principles in the Constitution in relation with American institutions and practices; the rights protected by the Bill of Rights; and challenges American constitutional democracy might face in the twenty-first century.
Benning Johnson, a junior from Quechee, VT, was in the Unit 5 group. He was looking forward to the variety of topics he and his teammates would encounter.
“We did really well in our state competition, and I really enjoyed that; I thought it was really interesting to explore more of the Supreme Court and different cases, and laws, and questions that really don’t always have an answer,” he said. “I’m excited for Nationals and to get to see more than just Massachusetts schools compete.”
In a typical year, the state competition would take place in Boston and the National Finals would be hosted in Washington, D.C., but this year all hearings took place on Zoom.
Benning told The Willistonian, “I definitely wish we could have been in person … but it was still fun to compete on Zoom and see other schools and compete with them, and then meet judges on Zoom that were just really insightful.”
Grace Bean, from Cambridge, Mass., found value in participating in the We the People curriculum, and sees it as a necessary stepping stone to a possible future career.
“I’ve always really wanted to go to law school when I’m older and working with these court cases and making an argument and studying this stuff is kind of a similar process to working on a case as a lawyer,” she said.
Grace was part of the Unit 3 group, and she feels that they gained an interesting perspective getting to work with one another on this long process.
“I like our group because we all have very different political opinions but we’re all very open about sharing them and talking about them productively,” she said. “I think it gives us a leg up with our paragraphs … because we’re contributing from very different sides and backgrounds.”
Before the competition, Gunn told The Willistonian how preparation for this competition brought students together and how he hopes it continues to.
“I’m hoping that in the last two and a half weeks the looming significance of this competition inspires some people to say ‘well if we’re all going to have to face this challenge, let’s face it together, as optimistically and compassionately with one another as we can,’” he said.