Episode Details

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello, and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It's a course called “We the People” and it's giving students a unique opportunity to learn more about constitutional history, law and civics. The class and “We the People'' competition enhance knowledge of the Constitution while allowing students to defend beliefs, rights and roles as U.S. citizens. On this episode of the Supercast, we take you inside West Hills Middle School to learn more about "We the People" and find out how students consistently use their skills and knowledge to compete and rise to the top in the statewide "We the People" competitions. Let's start in the classroom with teacher Austin Wrathall.

We're here at West Hills Middle School with Austin Wrathall to talk about the "We the People" competition. First of all, I have to tell you, I got walked down to my old classroom. When the principal showed me your classroom, it's actually the classroom I taught in the first year this school was open and it was a little trippy to walk down the hall. And I'm like, she's getting closer, that's the turn. And it's pretty wild. So how's it holding up?

Austin Wrathall:
It's holding up pretty well. I think.

Anthony Godfrey:
I hope that I left good vibes in the classroom for you.

Austin Wrathall:
I think so.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. Okay, good. Tell us about the "We the People" competition.

Austin Wrathall:
Yeah. So the "We the People" competition is a competition for students to learn about the Constitution. So these students hold a simulated congressional hearing. And if anyone's unfamiliar with what that is, sometimes the U.S. Congress will call in expert witnesses and ask them questions. And this is something that the students will get to experience, except in a real congressional hearing the topic could be anything, but for them, the topic is the U.S. Constitution. So they get to study the Constitution in depth and display their knowledge in front of a panel of judges.

Anthony Godfrey:
How long do you prepare for this competition and what's involved in the preparation?

Austin Wrathall:
So it takes several months and the students study from a textbook in addition to other online resources. So they have to prepare a four minute speech that they deliver as a group, and then they have to be prepared to answer six minutes worth of judge questions. These questions could be about republicanism versus democracy or how the Constitution was influenced by things that happened in the Colonial and Revolutionary War eras and things like that.

Anthony Godfrey:
It sounds like these students who are in 7th, 8th, 9th grade?

Austin Wrathall:
8th grade, yep.

Anthony Godfrey:
These 8th grade students may know a lot more about the Constitution than most of us. Is that accurate?

Austin Wrathall:
I think so. And in trying to teach them all this stuff, I have had to learn more about the Constitution than I knew before this as well.

Anthony Godfrey:
Is there something surprising that you learned about the Constitution that you didn't expect?

Austin Wrathall:
Yeah, I would say so. There are little bits of constitutional history that surp