When Alistair King had the opportunity to go back to school in his thirties, the former PR and communications professional chose to become a teacher.
“A lot of work I used to do was trying to change public opinion and make things seem better than they were,” says King. “I wanted to do something different, that helps people.”
It was a sense of hope and desire to improve the world that led him to teaching. “I believe that having these small interactions with young people, who are going to make better choices as adults, is the most powerful way that I can have a positive impact on Canada,” King says.
Now in his seventh year in the classroom, King teaches Social Studies, Philosophy, Economic Theory, and Political Studies to grade 10-12 students at Dover Bay Secondary in Nanaimo, B.C.
He’s passionate about the subjects he teaches — enough to bring the Political Studies 12 class to his school — and his approach is fittingly philosophical.
“Citizenship is the big goal for me as a teacher, and I think, broadly speaking, the goal of education,” King says. “We want to be active citizens trying to make this place where we live better. And in order to do that, you have to have certain skills, be able to talk, be able to think, be able to reason and communicate.”
He takes a holistic view of citizenship, bundling “media, digital literacy, government and democracy together because I think there are such strong links between them,” and incorporates these themes throughout his teaching.
King has led the Student Vote program for every federal, provincial and municipal election since he began teaching, achieving a 50% turnout rate at a school of 1,600 where participation is entirely optional.
Says his colleague Adam Barron, “This feat, beyond any doubt, speaks volumes about his ability to motivate and engage students in the democratic process.”
For Student Vote, King organizes popular all-candidate forums where those running speak and debate in front of the school to help students better understand the people and issues at play.
Outside of election times, too, King invites representatives into his classes. It is not unusual for his students to have the opportunity to interact with their MP, MLA, mayor and other officials.
His grade 10s recently got to pitch the mayor on their ideas for improving Nanaimo as part of a political action inquiry project. “The big question that I posed was, ‘What kind of city do you want to live in?’ And then they developed an idea, and created a pitch,” King says. “It was really exciting for them. We do variations of this kind of thing for all the classes.”
Being able to analyze and understand and reflect on the information that they're taking in — I don't think there's anything more important than that.
King uses a range of CIVIX programming, and sees CTRL-F as particularly needed. “What I’m seeing is that young people, generally speaking, don’t believe anything they find out online, but there’s a lot of truth online as well,” he says.
“Being able to analyze and understand and reflect on the information that they’re taking in — I don’t think there’s anything more important than that. It’s going to translate into democratic participation, it’s going to translate into better decisions at the ballot box.”
King is concerned by increasing social divisions and trouble he sees with respectful disagreement. Raised by parents who didn’t agree on politics, King says growing up his home was full of lively debate, of a kind that’s harder to come by now.
“People are so far apart, there’s no space for us to talk about things,” he says. “Kids think either you’re either a Marxist authoritarian, or you’re this Adam Smith free-market everything. And of course, we’re not like that.”
He aims to help students discover that people and political parties are not as far apart as we may think, and to communicate respectfully about political issues. “We need to be talking to each other as human beings — finding common ground or agreeing that we disagree and respecting each other while we do it.”
At a Glance
Name: Alistair King
Location: Naniamo, BC
Grades Taught: 10-12
Subjects Taught: Social Studies, Philosophy, Economic Theory, Political Studies
Years Teaching: 6
Years Involved with CIVIX: 6
CIVIX programs used: Student Vote, Student Budget Consultation, Rep Day, CTRL-F, PoliTalks, Democracy Bootcamp
Key Motivation: “To inspire young people to become active in their own lives. If they're active in their own lives, they're making their world slightly better than it was before. If everybody's doing this, then eventually we're going to have this big shift.”