Fifteen years ago, Sherwin-Williams account executive Leo Booth was frustrated with his daughter’s education.
On Wednesday, he was clutching a pad of yellow notebook paper, keeping a running tally of the correct answers his gaggle of seventh-grade civics students earned in the ninth annual Alachua County Civics Challenge. His students took first place.
“I saw more and more things that I thought weren’t beneficial in classrooms,” Booth said. “But instead of complaining about it, I left my corporate job and decided to teach.”
Booth, a Westwood Middle School social studies teacher, led seven students to victory Wednesday at the Alachua County Administration Building in downtown Gainesville. The event assembled the county’s brightest seventh graders to test their civics knowledge in a series of “Family Feud”-style competitions. The program exemplifies Florida legislation’s progressive investment in civic education.
This was Westwood’s fifth appearance at the Civics Challenge. It was the school’s third time winning first place.
The Florida Department of Education added a Civics End-of-Course assessment to the middle school curriculum in 2014. Before the exam was implemented, seventh graders were typically taught geography.
“If you want to bore a bunch of 12-year-olds to death, talk about geography,” Booth said. “Even your average kid who thinks they’re going to hate civics usually winds up with it being their favorite class because they understand that it’s about the world around them.”
The Civics Challenge is organized and co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters and Alachua County Public Schools. Anne Shermyen, with the Leage of Women Voters, said the style of the challenge came from her experience playing British pub trivia.
“We thought we could increase the visibility of civic education in the community and do something fun for the seventh graders who had this relatively new educational requirement,” Shermyen said.
In Florida, the Civics End-of-Course Assessment is worth 30% of a student’s final grade. It is the only state-mandated middle school course with this kind of standard.
“There are mock trial and debate teams that engage with some kind of quasi-civics effort, but the Civics Challenge is the only event that is tied to state standards,” Shermyen said. “And it ties into the U.S. History requirement in high school too.”
K-12 social studies curriculum specialist Jon Rehm developed 760 questions for the competition using state benchmarks as a foundation for content. Students were tested on everything from the Magna Carta to the names of current Florida state officials.
“It’s that mix of state curriculum and deciding what general civics knowledge you want kids to know to be participatory here in Alachua County,” Rehm said. “And I was surprised that almost every single kid knew both of their Florida senators; it’s really cool to see that.”
Lindsay Little, 13, was asked to represent Westwood Middle School in the Civics Challenge after excelling during in-class review games with Booth.
“I’m just constantly monitoring who’s there, and who’s consistently in the top 10; that becomes the basis for our team,” Booth said.
The competition serves as an additional review for students to prepare for the exam. Students learn more during the competition than they do in the regular course, Lindsay said.
“There’s lots of anxiety when you first get up there,” Lindsay said. “But once you understand that you know what you’re doing and you’re going to always get some questions wrong, it becomes a lot more fun.”
But civics education isn’t just about memorizing facts. Discussing politics and current events goes hand in hand with the curriculum. And promoting critical thinking is one of the most important factors of teaching civic education, Booth said.
“If my students end up knowing so much that they win a bunch of money on Jeopardy, that’s awesome. Send me some,” Booth said. “But the main thing I want kids to walk out of my classroom with is critical thinking skills. I want them to take the ideas and information they’ve learned here and come up with their own answers and beliefs based on sources.”
In the Civics Challenge, team questions are worth three times as many points as individual questions. This incentive for collaboration aligns with the promotion of critical thinking among students.
“That critical thinking comes through not necessarily in the answering of the questions, but when the students are working as a team to find the right answer,” Rehm said. “Those teams that gather together to talk it out and cheer each other on are the ones that are usually better off.”
The Civics Challenge has also grown to involve interaction with local government officials. This year, conversations with Eighth Judicial Circuit Public Defender Stacy Scott and Alachua County Tax Collector John Power broke up the rounds of competition.
“Having students begin to understand their own political identity while also learning about the functioning of our local government is really important for kids at this age,” Rehm said.
The Florida Department of Education places civics education before other courses like U.S. History, which students usually take in high school. This decision is a smart one, Scott said.
“You want to start teaching this stuff early,” Scott said. “You don’t want to wait until someone is in high school to first introduce civics because they may have already begun to formulate opinions.”
While students who excel in the course were invited to participate in this year’s in-person Civics Challenge, the challenge is not limited to just one day. All seventh-grade students will be given the opportunity to participate in a virtual version of the competition on Tuesday, Rehm said.
And while the Civics Challenge is only held in Alachua County, multiple sources expressed a desire for the program to expand into a larger competition.
“You have things like the history bowl that are state and nationwide, and all kinds of math and science competitions, so why not something like this?” Booth said.
As for Westwood’s winning team, the accolades at school on Thursday were enough to strengthen students’ confidence in both government knowledge and themselves.
“They made an announcement this morning at school and saw an article in the paper after they won,” Booth said. “They’re really pumped — they get to walk around the school like they’re somebody.”