Katie Glover’s approach to democracy education is action-oriented because she wants students to view citizenship as an everyday practice.
“I really try to focus on ensuring everything is as active and hands-on as possible,” says the B.C. high school teacher. “You do need to learn the basics, but citizenship and civics is something we’re doing, always.”
Glover, who has been a teacher for nine years, goes above and beyond in making democratic participation concrete and relevant for her students.
She teaches Social Studies, Economic Theory and Political Studies at Brookswood Secondary School in Langley. In all of her classes there is a focus on action, current events, and making connections with elected representatives, with a steady stream of MPs, MLAs and city councillors visiting the school.
Building rapport with elected officials helps students to see that government isn’t something abstract — there are people whose job it is to represent the interests of their constituents, and everyone gets a say and a voice. “We all need to understand that you don’t have to sit around and complain about the government, you can actually take action,” Glover says.
Students in Political Studies 12, a course she initiated at Brookswood four years ago, sees students take on a semester-long ‘do something’ project a.k.a. The Neighbourhood Politics Project. Students are asked to identify a local issue they care about, learn about it, speak to experts, and advocate for change.
The research typically begins with a walk around the community, where students observe and take photos of issues they might want to investigate. They then work through a question matrix to help guide the process. One student, for example, focused on a dangerous intersection, “She came up with a bunch of questions about who’s in charge of these road signs? How do we get a streetlight put in, like what needs to happen?”
Answering those initial questions often involves students getting in touch with their city councillors. “At first they’re nervous to do it,” she says, “but then they see the response, and I think they really get the sense that these people actually care.”
At the end of the year they share their process and findings with their classmates, “They are pretty proud,” says Glover. “They all present to the class what their problem was, why they chose it, what they did, they show evidence. They have to show artifacts, like here’s emails I sent and who I talked to, or they took little videos or pictures. Then they share what the next steps would be, and what they learned.”
She acknowledges the slow pace of bureaucracy doesn’t always align with the school calendar, so the point isn’t to fix the problem, though sometimes things do get done. Last year a group of students took on the issue of disorganization in the school parking lot. “It was a huge problem. Everyone hated it,” says Glover. “The project got a lot of attention, and coming back to school this September, the parking system had been changed.”
Glover, who has been on maternity leave for most of this school year, hasn’t had a chance to verify a causal relationship, “but four city councilors came and I know they really care when teenagers contact them,” she says. “It is likely these students had a real impact.”
Democracy is not a given. It's something you have to actively participate in and protect, or else we won't have it anymore.
Grade 10 Social Studies is active in a different way, with students participating in a mock parliament activity. “We do a bill-to-law simulation. I give them a bill to argue and they love it,” she says. Following the activity, Glover has her students isolate the most important takeaway and turn it into publishable content, such as a TikTok or Instagram post, to explain it to younger students.
And in Economics, her students look at a big problem the province is facing — such as the housing crisis or opioid crisis — learn more about the issue, and speak with experts. “They have to try to solve the problem through an economic lens,” Glover says. “I teach them economic theories from economists, like Marx, Keynes and Smith, so they’ll have to look at ‘how would Marx solve this problem, how would Keynes solve this problem? What’s the government currently doing about this problem?’”
Students then have to say how they would improve on what the government is doing, based on what they’ve learned. She further engages students by calling on the local MLA to come to class to discuss the issues and what can be done about them.
Glover has been working with CIVIX since the 2017 Student Vote. She credits a Democracy Bootcamp event with kick-starting her approach to civic education. “It just got me really passionate and running Student Vote that first time and it just kind of spiraled from there,” she says. Student Vote is now a huge deal at Brookswood.
Whether it’s during elections or between them, Glover’s commitment is abundantly clear, and she is motivated by the knowledge that she has a role to play in contributing to the health of democracy.
“Democracy is not a given. It’s something you have to actively participate in and protect, or else we won’t have it anymore,” she says. “So many people in Canada, because things have been so good for so long, just take too much of it for granted.”
“When I see stuff in the news about conspiracy theories and how rampant they are, I’m like, ‘Wait a second, that’s my job. I have a role to play here. This is something I can actually do something about.’ It’s so essential for the future.”
At a Glance
Name: Katie Glover
Location: Langley, B.C.
Grades Taught: 10 - 12
Subjects Taught: Social Studies, Economic Theory, and Political Studies
Years Teaching: 9
Years Involved with CIVIX: 7
CIVIX programs used: Student Vote, CTRL-F, PoliTalks, Rep Day
Key Motivation: “Hope for a better future. Democracy is the only way out of this, and we can’t take it for granted.”