![Four students with laptops sit around a table in conversation.](/sites/default/files/styles/2_1_320x160/public/2024-08/FHO_SFUSD_051324-64.jpg?h=4362216e&itok=iZ7jdsKt)
Civic Education
![Facing History Overview of Our Approach to Civic Education.](/sites/default/files/styles/scale_320/public/2024-08/Civic%20Overview%20Content%20Card.png?itok=almV6AFX)
Want to learn how Facing History can help you integrate civic education in your classrooms and schools? Download our 3-page Approach to Civic Education guide for free.
Facing History’s civic education resources and professional learning opportunities support teachers to cultivate a strong sense of civic responsibility and engagement in their students.
Our civic education curriculum teaches students to discern facts from misinformation, connect history with the world around them, engage with others who differ from them and collaboratively explore solutions to complex civic problems.
Our Approach to Civic Education
Drawing on Facing History’s learning journey, our approach to civic education includes opportunities where students explore, learn, and participate and, ultimately, develop informed civic responsibility.
Explore: Facing History centers students’ identities, voices, and lived experiences as they develop civic agency and responsibility.
Learn: Facing History builds students’ civic knowledge and understanding by engaging them in inquiry and analysis of the complexities of history, human experience, and societal issues.
Participate: Facing History creates opportunities for students to learn how to share their perspectives, exercise their voice, and raise awareness in informed and ethical ways using a variety of formats and media.
![Picture of student speaking.](/sites/default/files/styles/scale_480/public/2023-03/221116-0494.jpg?itok=cc41gmE2)
Teaching about the 2024 Election & Educating for Civic Participation
Join any or all of the six sessions in this learning series on the health of our democracy, voting and elections, and young people's civic participation.
Aligned Civic Education Professional Development
Facing History offers a wide variety of professional development experiences that support the implementation of our civic education curriculum. These offerings also develop educator competencies that are foundational to our approach, including: nurturing student-centered classrooms; promoting inquiry-based learning and deliberative skills; and fostering empathy and ethical reflection.
Our Proven Impact
Our most important measures of success are meaningful civic and academic outcomes for students. In studies conducted over the past 20 years, students report the following as a result of their experiences with Facing History:
-
86% of Facing History alumni registered to vote in the last presidential election and were more civically engaged than their peers.
-
93% of Facing History students said Facing History's presence in their school has increased their capacity to understand and feel for people who are different from them.
-
81% of Facing History students said Facing History's presence in their school has increased their capacity to think about the impact of their choices.