Michael Potts stands before a room full of disappointed eighth-grade We the People students.
He asks how they are feeling. He asks how they slept last night.
No students really say how they’re feeling, but their lowered heads and somber faces tell their teacher enough.
The day before, the eighth-grade civics team had won third place at the state We the People competition sponsored by the Indiana Bar Foundation. In recent years, BCJHS eighth-graders had placed second behind rival Fishers Junior High School. A couple years before that, BCJHS was a national champion or runner-up.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]The We the People program teaches students about civic competence and responsibilities. The course emphasizes American history and constitutional issues, including current events and applicable court cases. Then, at We the People competitions, students testify in mock congressional hearings before panels of professional judges.
In the past 10 years, Brown County Junior High School has won six We the People state championships, two national runner-up titles and two national championships.
This is the first year a team has placed third at the state level, but to their teacher, this group has won more than any trophy can prove — even if the students can’t see that yet.
“What you all learned in this class far exceeds or outweighs any civics competition. It was an eighth-grade civics competition. Eighth grade. You will have bigger things in your life than this,” he tells his students.
“Are you sure about that?” one student asks.
“I’m positive,” Potts replies.
From day one, Potts told his students that this class would push them harder than they have ever been pushed before.
But they’d also be surrounded by people to support them: a “family” of former “Weeples” who always come out to help the next team win.
“It was a very trying semester, wasn’t it? For all of you, it was. … I don’t want to hear your groaning, ‘My life is over.’ OK? It’s not,” Potts said.
“You are 18 of my favorite people in the world. You will continue to be. You’re part of that family. I want you to come back.”
Potts is not minimizing the competition, but is trying to put the loss into perspective. He tells them that because of this class, they are on track to becoming local and national leaders.
“I feel better knowing all of you are going to lead our nation. I feel better knowing that all of the kids there yesterday are going to lead the nation,” he said.
“That makes me feel better as an American that you are going to be leaders. It feels so good. It makes me feel so good to be a part of that.”
This competition has also taught students an invaluable life lesson: That they will have setbacks in life.
“We had a setback yesterday. … You’re going to have to roll with it. You’re going to have to learn that the lion does not concern itself with the opinion of a sheep,” he said.
Earlier in the class he asked his students — like he does every year — if they heard anything negative from their fellow students about their performance at the state competition. This year, about half of the class raised their hands. In years past, every hand had gone up.
“You’re lions. Don’t care what those sheep out there think, because those sheep out there aren’t in the arena, aren’t putting themselves on the line. What you did, what you all did was brave and bold. You didn’t have to do it; you chose to do it. You chose to put yourselves on the line,” he said.
Because of their experience with the We the People class, Potts told his students they are better speakers, better writers and overall better American citizens.
“Also learn that you will not get everything you want in life, and there will be haters. … There will be critics. There are always sheep. Be a leader.”
“You’re all winners. … I’m really, really proud of you.”
The next day, Potts took a group of students up to the Indiana Statehouse to demonstrate We the People to state senators in hopes that it will show the legislature how important this program is, and that they will continue it to support financially and in other ways. The Indiana Bar Foundation picked Brown County to do this demonstration.
More than a trophy
Potts went into the state competition Dec. 10 believing a first-place win was possible.
“I’ve had some really good teams in the past who I felt were based on the judges’ feedback (feeling) like, ‘Oh, we got this,’ then didn’t (win first place), so I was tempered a little bit, like, ‘Yes, we can, but maybe not,’” he said.
But after watching his students perform during the daylong competition he thought a first place one was definitely possible.
“Third place was a little more shocking to me because of the feedback and of their performance,” he said.
This is eighth year Potts is teaching the We the People course. Previously, he worked as a paraprofessional under former We the People teacher Doug Thomas, so Potts has watched the program grow for more than 10 years.
His first year helping Thomas with the program, the BCJHS team came in fourth place, which was the best they had done so far.
Potts has also watched as the team’s rivals have changed, from St. Richard’s School in Indianapolis to Fishers Junior High School.
“When they (Fishers) came on the scene (around five years ago) it changed it. It certainly upped my game. It upped our program’s game,” Potts said.
“I’m thankful we have that rivalry, that competition.”
Fishers Junior High and Fall Creek Junior High School were the top two winners at the state competition this year. Both are larger school districts with more students and resources. Potts said he is proud that his Brown County team can compete on that level.
The competition continues to grow as more schools join in and send a team to compete, which is important, Potts said.
“Studies have shown that about 26 percent of Americans can name three branches of government,” he said.
“From the time we wake up and brush our teeth in the morning to the time we set our alarm in the evening to go to sleep, the government has a hand in it. If we don’t know, if kids don’t know how to effectively operate the levers of government, then the government and the people within it will operate for us to their ends — and for their ends and not for ours — so it’s important.”
Eighth-graders Ava Kelly and Gavin Butcher both did not care about the government before joining the We the People team. Now, they know the importance of understanding how it works.
Kelly said she is most proud to know how an impeachment process works, especially with impeachment being in the news now.
“Me and my parents sat down last night and we were talking about it. It’s just fun to have the conversations like we do. I was explaining the impeachment process to them, and that’s, like, really cool to me to, like, know more than my parents,” she said.
Butcher said he is most proud he learned the importance of voting and why a person may not want to vote straight-ticket.
“Knowing what’s happening in our government, I feel a lot more responsible to change it, and if it’s going wrong, tell people about it,” he said.
Before We the People, Kelly knew the three branches of government, but she was not sure what they did. “I didn’t really care because I didn’t know,” she said.
Butcher said this class helps students to be better American citizens.
Both students said they spent hours preparing for the competitions.
“I didn’t sleep very well before the (state) competition. I was up until like midnight just making sure I knew everything,” Butcher said.
Kelly recited her speeches on the bus, in the shower and to her parents.
“My sister knows my speech, too, because I’ve said it to her so many times, and she’s a fourth-grader,” Butcher said.
Both students also said they feel like they are part of the We the People family now, which is also something a trophy cannot measure.
Potts said he still hears from former students. Some are now studying political science or public policy. Former students have told Potts how the class has helped them be successful in scholarship and job interviews, too.
One student who is now in college emailed Potts recently to tell him she thought of We the People when her class began studying John Locke and the state of nature.
“(She said) ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about eighth-grade We the People.’ That’s such a cool feeling. I get that often from students,” Potts said.
Potts said this year’s group worked extremely hard and he is proud of what they accomplished.
“I am deeply impressed every year, and just as impressed this year, that they can do what they do as eighth-graders, because when I was in eighth grade, I couldn’t do it. There’s no doubt I could not do what they do,” he said.
And they do it with class, he said.
“I tell them every year, I would rather come in dead last and have every person we come into contact with think we’re a class act than to come in first and have one person think we weren’t,” he said.
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Unit 1: What were the Founders’ basic ideas about government?
Clay Austin, Rain Drake, Mykal Eddins
Unit 2: What shaped the Founders’ thinking about government?
Corbin Brahaum, Gavin Butcher, Eli Webb
Unit 3: What happened at the Philadelphia Convention?
Conner Henderson, Madalyn Purlee, Lynsey Summers
Unit 4: How was the Constitution used to establish our government?
Lexie Austin, Cady Kemp, Anna Tipton
Unit 5: How does the Constitution protect our basic rights?
Livie Austin, Julia Burt, Skyla Lipscomb, Ava Padgett
Unit 6: What are the responsibilities of citizens?
Clare Endris, Jazmine Gayhart, Ava Kelly
[sc:pullout-text-end]
