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We the People Mock Congressional Hearings By Suzanne deLemos, Northglenn (CO) High School
	• Should presidents have the power to order military action without explicit congressional approval? • Do you agree or disagree with the Supreme Court that the right to vote “is preservative” of other basic rights? • What responsibilities, if any, does a citizen have to protect the rights of others, whether or not his or her own rights are endangered?

These were the types of questions I wanted my ninth-grade government students to discuss and deliberate. I wanted them to know more than the names of the three branches of government; I wanted them to understand why separation of powers matters. Too often my students knew many facts but were unable to engage in thoughtful civic discourse. Five summers ago, I attended a We the People institute that presented a program that I have since used to help my students acquire the knowledge and skills they needed to have conversations about political issues within the class and with each other.

Asking the Right Questions

We the People is an inquiry-based civic education program designed to help students develop in-depth understanding of the Constitution and the fundamental principles of democratic government. Students work in small groups to develop answers to questions about issues related to democratic government and Constitutional law. The culminating activity is a mock congressional hearing in which student groups present “testimony” to members of the community. Students play the role of experts and present their analysis of the questions. Community members play the role of congressional committee members conducting a hearing into the question under consideration. At the end of the hearings, students can do much more than name the three branches and list some checks and balances; they understand how the branches of government work, why checks and balances matter, and how their lives are impacted by government.

At the summer institute, I took on the role of a student and went through the same process my students would experience in the fall. This gave me an appreciation of the intensity of the mock congressional hearings and how stressful the preparation process can be.

In addition to working in small groups on questions for the hearing, we attended lectures by noted constitutional scholars. Between the work on the questions and the scholarly presentations, my understanding of the political philosophies of the Framers and the Constitution itself grew deeper. At the end of the week, my team presented our work to a group of attorneys and constitutional authorities to present our work. I had not been so nervous about a presentation for years. Afterwards, every member of my group felt a rush of pleasure over our accomplishment. I wanted my students to have the same experience.

In the fall, I began We the People with my ninth-grade class.

Working Together

I needed to find a way to create six balanced working groups in my classes. I decided to try an approach suggested by one of the mentor teachers at the institute. I chose six team leaders and had them create the small groups. I identified six students to act as leaders and met with them outside of class time. I told the leaders they were responsible for creating six balanced teams of students and helping their groups stay organized and focused. I emphasized that they were NOT responsible for doing all the work.

The feedback I received from student leaders and their parents has been very positive. Several of the students had never had an opportunity to serve in a leadership role like this before and were really excited about receiving this recognition. Last year one girl in particular amazed me with her ability to manage a large group of ninth-grade boys who tended to be fairly unfocused. Every time I walked past her group, they were working away and having interesting discussions about their topic.

The groups worked together to write a four-minute opening statement to answer their question and also to gather information they could use in answering any follow-up questions the judges might have. I gave the students a list of potential follow-ups to use for practice but told them that the judges might have other questions as well.

Preparing for a Public Audience

After the students had been researching their questions and working together for a few weeks, I began to tell them about the community members who would be arriving to judge their presentations. I told them there would be attorneys, teachers, congressional assistants, and even a few mayors listening to what they had to say. The room got very quiet afterwards. On her way out at the end of class, one girl said “Couldn’t you just have our moms come? They would be nice to us.”

We held practice competitions in which some student panels presented while their classmates acted as judges. Most of the opening statements went well, but when the “judges” began asking some of the follow-up questions, panelists struggled and discussion ground to a halt. I began suggesting possible responses and then had the panel practice answering the same question again. It was clear how important this follow-up part of the presentation was. This was when students really developed the kind of in-depth understanding of the principles of democratic government I wanted them to have. During one of the practice sessions, a fellow teacher remarked “I can’t believe these are ninth-graders! How do you get them to speak like that?” I told her they were doing it themselves.

As the students worked together to create their presentations, the level of intensity was even higher than it had been for the teachers during the summer institute. There were many times I swore I would never teach this unit again. The hours after school with students agonizing over their speeches, students yelling at each other about who had dropped which ball, and crying students came close to convincing me that it just was not worth it.

When the day of their presentations arrived, the students were dressed in their “courtroom” clothes and flew around making last-minute adjustments to their presentations. Then it was time; they all took their seats and the judges arrived. I think I was more nervous than my students as I watched them present.