By Caitlin McLane, Social Science Faculty

“We’ve never been so divided as a nation.” This phrase is playing on repeat on every major news outlet and social media platform as we approach the 2024 presidential election in November. Whenever I hear this phrase, the historian in me would like to remind everyone of the Civil War and the contested elections of 1876, 2000, and 2020 that threatened our democratic electoral process. While historical context is a critical factor in understanding modern politics, the reality is that our nation has not experienced political polarization of this magnitude in a very, very long time. In a 2022 poll put out by Pew Research Center, 28% of the American public expressed unfavorable views of both political parties, 25% stated that they do not feel well-represented by either political party, and 63% of Americans expressed dissatisfaction and disappointment with all political candidates. And yet our country has never been more politically engaged, with the elections of 2018, 2020, and 2022, seeing historically high levels of voter turnout in national elections. How do we reconcile this gap between public dissatisfaction and high participation in the political process? What does this political polarization and frustration mean for our nation and our soon-to-be voters heading into the 2024 election?

These questions were the focus of a recent professional development conference put on by the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) in partnership with Close Up Foundation in Washington, D.C. this July. I was lucky enough to attend this Civil Discourse Lab and spend three wonderfully humid days in the nation’s capital with my colleagues, Sam Uzwack, Dan Yezbick, and Kim Marzano, thinking critically about political discourse and civic engagement at EPS.

A highlight of our time at the conference was a keynote address delivered by Dr. Alice Siu, Associate Director of Stanford University’s Deliberative Democracy Lab. Dr. Siu has dedicated her academic career to examining political discourse and promoting productive dialogue in a functioning democracy. Dr. Siu’s research and Deliberative Polling prove that individuals who spend the time to educate themselves on political issues and then engage in discussion with people across the political spectrum walk away with a more optimistic view of our political system and a more empathetic, positive view of those with different opinions. Additionally, individuals from both major political parties who engage in political discourse note a significant change, or softening, of their own political opinions after their exchanges. As Dr. Siu shared in her talk, “When people come together to deliberate, learn about each other, and understand the why behind each other’s political views, we have concrete evidence that opinions drastically change.”

Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab has hosted numerous Deliberative Polls that bring together Americans of all backgrounds to listen and discuss political issues. In 2019, The New York Times reported on Stanford’s first “America in One Room” experiment, which consisted of 526 registered voters from across the country coming together in Dallas, Texas, for a weekend to deliberate on national political issues. According to Dr. James Fishkin, director of the Deliberative Democracy Lab, when you put “a diverse group of people in a room…they’re likely to mute their harshest views and wrestle more deeply with rebuttals. They become more informed, even more empathetic.” By the end of the weekend, the number of participants who said they believed that American democracy worked well doubled, from 30% at the start of the weekend to 60% in the exit poll. These polling outcomes continue to be replicated in similar “America in One Room” events, indicating that informed and respectful political discourse might be the antidote to our nation’s divisive political rhetoric. This July, Stanford University partnered with Up Close Foundation to host the first “America in One Room: The Youth Vote” event, which will provide us with even more data on the potential impact of deliberative discourse on high school and college campuses.

My main takeaway from the conference and Dr. Siu’s research was that students (and adults) need to be taught how to engage in productive, respectful, and informed political discourse. News outlets and social media platforms amplify the political divisiveness in our nation, inundating our feeds with like-minded views and political clickbait that often serve to entrench our opinions rather than expand our understanding of an issue. In my opinion, it is the responsibility of learning institutions like Eastside Prep to teach, model, and create space for students to respectfully engage with ideas and perspectives beyond their own. If the one place designed to explore and expand one’s thinking does not provide these discourse skills and deliberative experiences, where does an individual learn to engage with people who think differently than they do? The mission of EPS is to “inspire students to create a better world through critical thinking, responsible action, compassionate leadership, and wise innovation.” The only way that EPS students will be able to fulfill this mission is if we teach and encourage them to be curious about the world within and beyond our walls.

In many ways, this conference reaffirmed what I already knew about our learning community. We are a school that invests in the professional and intellectual development of our faculty and staff because we deeply believe that these learning experiences will be brought back to the classroom and enrich the student experience. We are a school that was founded on the principles of intellectual curiosity, diversity of thought, compassion, and creativity. The upcoming election taps into a culture of civic discourse that has always been present in EPS classrooms and hallways, and yet this culture of discourse requires tending and should not be taken for granted. This conference was a powerful reminder that most adults struggle to engage with each other on political issues in a respectful, informed manner, so it is unfair for us to expect our students and children to be able to navigate the world of political discourse without structured guidance and support. Political discourse is a skill that must be taught, modeled, and continuously practiced in a learning community, and we owe it to ourselves and our students to engage in the important work of having conversations with people who hold a variety of political opinions.

My hope for our school community heading into the 2024 election is that we lean into this civic opportunity and embrace a new approach to political dialogue. The EPS community has already been practicing many of these discourse skills in our classrooms and in our Equity, Inclusion, and Compassionate Leadership (EICL) work over the past few years. We can build off these skills and experiences in the coming months to be more intentional in our approach to political discourse. We want our students to be able to research and discern credible information, to think critically and independently, and to seek out perspectives that expand, rather than duplicate, their own views. We want students to focus on the issues at stake in this election, such as immigration, reproductive rights, and foreign policy, rather than the partisan rhetoric and candidate cults that dominate the political landscape right now. We want students to understand and recognize the importance of civic discourse in creating and maintaining an informed electorate. We want students to listen to each other and feel comfortable and confident sharing their own views in difficult conversations. If we can support students in developing these skills and create space for substantive and respectful deliberation, then maybe, just maybe, we can shift the focus off of the product of the election and on to the process of participating in a functioning democracy.

Sources and Further Reading

Badger, Emily and Kevin Quealy. “These 526 Voters Represent All of America. And They Spent a Weekend Together.” The New York Times. October 2, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/02/ upshot/these-526-voters-represent-america.html.

De Witte, Melissa. “Could Deliberative Democracy Depolarize America? Stanford Scholars Think So.” Stanford Report. February 4, 2021. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2021/02/ deliberative-democracy-depolarize-america.

Fishkin, James, Valentin Bolotnyy, Joshua Lerner, Alice Siu, and Norman Bradburn. “Can Deliberation Have Lasting Effects?” American Political Science Review (February 6, 2024): 1–21. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0003055423001363.

Winograd, Willoughby J., and Alice Siu. “Depolarizing Through Deliberation in Civics Education: A Case Study of Like-Minded High School Students.” The Good Society 31, no. 1 (2022): 86-106. muse. jhu.edu/article/924704.