Jenna Gibson, Kevin Lenthe, Katherine Chuang
Thirty-six consecutive newsletters and over 2,500 subscribers later, our team is so proud of what we've built. Every single week for the past nine months, we've broken down the biggest political stories from the Left and Right. The writing process hasn't always been easy, but it's been a privilege to publish Civil every week and an even bigger honor that you've chosen to read it.
That's why we're so excited for what comes next: a pivot from weekly newsletter to high school humanities. We're currently deep in the product development process: interviewing educators, doing a ton of research, and building prototypes. Don't worry though, the newsletter isn't going away entirely; we're just taking a step back to reassess what's next. While the newsletter will be published less frequently for the foreseeable future, we'll pop back into your inbox from time to time with the bipartisan analysis you just can't live without.
Why high school education? At the moment, American students are taught US politics and government through an overwhelmingly historical lens: Supreme Court rulings, the economics of taxation, how legislation is passed, etc. While that knowledge is an important foundation, dozens of educators we've interviewed have told us they want students to learn how to think critically and empathetically about current events like gun control, immigration, and climate change. However, they've also told us that it's incredibly challenging to teach polarizing current events in a way that's seen as unbiased by students and their parents.
We're building a product to change that.
Our platform will give educators the resources and frameworks to navigate current events, news sources, and political ideologies in the classroom. That's ultimately why we started Civil way back in August: to cut through the sensationalism, misinformation, and bias so present in our country today.
This project is still in its early stages and won't be ready for a couple of months. This week, we'll begin forming an advisory board of some of the finest educators in the country. Receiving guidance from the very people who will be implementing this product in the fall is an incredible privilege.
To reiterate, this is not goodbye, merely a change of pace. You'll still occasionally see us in your inbox over the next few months, and eventually, we might return to our usual weekly schedule.
To everyone who has read our newsletters over the past nine months, thank you, thank you, thank you. You are the reason we pulled an all-nighter to cover the 2020 Presidential election and the George Floyd decision, love debating policy for hours (civilly, of course), and put out a newsletter every single week.
If you want to help prepare students for our modern political world by connecting us with educators you know, click the button below. Or, if you'd prefer, simply respond to this email with other ideas, connections, or ways you want to get involved and we'll get back to you right away.
We can't wait to show you what we're building later this summer. In the meantime, thank you for making this country and your family dinners more civil.
Until the next newsletter,
Max & The Civil Team |
