By Beth Pellicciotti, Civics Education Portfolio Director, LWVWA Board 

Are we ever too old to keep learning civics? Elaine Harger, retired educator and Spokane League member, responds, “We all have a deep need to hold important conversations about civics.” 

In the fall of 2021, Elaine brought her interest in civics and her experience as a lifelong educator to a class of older adults in the Spokane Community College Act 2 Program. 

Elaine’s class, We the People, explored the meaning of citizenship. She started the class with a poem for everyone to think about citizenship, what it means to be a citizen, and what is expected of a citizen. 

Another class focused on the history of voting rights in the United States. Students expressed surprise that many groups fought for decades for the right to vote. They also learned that voting rights had been given to some people and then taken away. Students read a Bill of Rights article on what the Founding Fathers thought were important traits or virtues for a citizen.  

Elaine asked the class, “What citizen virtues do we think are important? How are they different or similar to those of the Founding Fathers?” 

She noted that the Founding Fathers of the United States had many blind spots in that their actions did not always reflect their ideal of democracy. She added, “I wanted the class to see threads, continuous from the beginning of the country until now.” 

Another class focused on the redistricting occurring statewide and in Spokane County in the fall of 2021. The class started with a student showing a map, explaining how the map had influenced her and why. Then discussion moved to map bias. How did earlier flattened maps of the globe distort reality? Why are maps so important? 

In the last class, students produced “zines,” short, creative magazines. They assembled their zines with paper and colored background and sprinkled them with different fonts and pictures. Students penned their favorite quotes from the readings and answered the questions “What do you best remember from the class?” and “What are three virtues of a citizen?” 

Elaine explains her approach to teaching, “I have been an educator for a very long time. I have found that we learn best when we share readings and engage in conversations about what we have read. These conversations surface different perspectives that readers bring to a particular document.”  

As to older adults learning civics, Elaine ends by saying, “We live in a work-a-day world, true even for those of us who are retired. Our lives do not give us space to learn from each other. We have a deep need to hold these important conversations about civics, especially as adults.” 

For more information on this class, contact Elaine Harger.   

We the People zine produced by Elaine Harger’s Spokane Community College class. 

Spokane League member Elaine Harger teaching “We the People” class at Spokane Community College.