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Cheryl Cook-Kallio puts her money where her mouth is.  After decades of teaching civics in American public schools, she won a seat on the Pleasanton, California City Council in 2006.  Two years later, her inspiring work as a teacher of civics, government and American history earned her the American Civic Education Award from the Alliance for Representative Democracy.  She recently told us about her school.

As an elected official, Cook-Kallio lives what she teaches, and she inspires her students to live what they learn.  She and her colleagues at Irvington High School in California push their students to become civically engaged both inside and outside of school.  

Irvington students research and solve local problems, raise money for struggling communities, simulate Congressional hearings and explore diverse political perspectives on critical issues. They understand the Constitution and its direct bearing on their lives. These efforts are an integral part of a challenging academic curriculum, not just extracurricular activities for an ambitious few.

One week before an historic presidential election, Cook-Kallio offers hope that a new generation can help us transcend the toxic, divisive politics that have characterized so many recent campaigns.

Download the full, 20-minute interview here, or read through a transcript of highlights below. 

You can also download any of the following excerpts from the full interview:

1.) Civic Education: "The Most Essential Thing We Do with Children" (36 sec)

2.) Putting Knowledge of Government into Practice (1:42)

3.) Much More than a Government Class: Creating Hands-On Democracy (3:05)

4.) Saturating the Curriculum with Civic Education (3:42)

5.) "We the People": Bringing the Constitution to Life in the Classroom (2:13)

6.) Teaching Students to Respect Different Viewpoints in a Politically-Divided Nation (3:15)

7.) "Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is": The Teacher Becomes a City Council Member (2:26)

8.) Final Thought: Believe in What You Teach; Act on What You Believe (1:33)

Transcript of Interview Highlights
PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS:  Are there any kinds of civic education structures you have in the school a part of the curriculum that expose most of the students to civic education?

COOK-KALLIO:  We have three benchmark assignments that kids do while they're at high school here.  The first one is called the Change Project, and all freshmen do it.  They find a problem that exists in our community that they believe they can contribute toward finding a solution, but it also has an academic and a curricular component in that it has to address the standards that are in their English and their science classes.

At the junior level, they do a U.N. project.  A lot of the kids have been involved in Kiva, which is a micro-loan program, and have collected money in their classes and focused on somebody who needs that micro-loan in a community that they're studying for their U.N. project.

Then at the senior level we have something called Quest, which is an individual project.  It's a senior project that involves exploring an interest, doing some research, and experiencing that with a community member who participates.  Then they do some sort of service that they have to create themselves.  And then every senior does a 20-minute testimony, talking about their Quest project and the results of their research. 

And those of us that are involved in the Benchmark projects meet regularly to make sure that we're on the same page.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS:  And do you have a sense of how this work the students are doing in civics education and civic engagement is influencing their other academic work?

COOK-KALLIO:  I think it is across the board.  I mean, even teachers who don't teach the Benchmarks are aware of them and they're involved in some way.  Often, there's things that the kids need to know for other classes--literacy skills, it might be organizational skills.  It might have to do with our school-wide outcomes, which have to do with communication, personal responsibility, social responsibility, and critical thinking.  So it is infused in everything they do here.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS:  I've also read about something you've done called "We the People."  I was wondering if you could describe that. 

COOK-KALLIO:  "We the People" is one of the most engaging things I've ever done with kids.  It is a comprehensive study of the philosophical foundations of the Constitution, going through the development of the Constitution, federalism, congressional oversight, the executive branch, judicial, the Bill of Rights.  It culminates in a Unit 6 that deals with participatory citizenship, and the kids mimic a congressional hearing.

And they are able to explain the Constitution in ways...I mean, I'll have kids who know 250 court cases and be able to explain to you what substantive due process is, what compelling state interest is, and what incorporation is.  But more importantly, they can take that and they will use real-life examples and point to that and say, "This is why this is important."  They'll understand all those sort of things in a very deep and embedded way, and these kids remain engaged--and they all vote.  If they don't vote in my class it's generally because they haven't become a citizen yet.  

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS:  As we approach a historic election, do you ever encounter the concern that hands-on lessons about voting could become unduly political, in the negative sense of the word?

COOK-KALLIO:  The program is predicated on the kids understanding both sides, to make it a safe place for kids to disagree with one another, to get them to understand the issues based on the evidence and not emotion.  I often will have the kids argue the opposite point of what they think they believe.  I think that if you do it appropriately and safely, the kids move towards the center because they, all of a sudden, realize there's two sides to every issue.

And it's built into the curriculum that you can't do well if you don't get the whole picture.  Government is the art of compromise.  You're only going to get a little bit of what you want because you have to balance that with the needs of everybody else in the community, which deals with the classic attitude of common good and enlightened self-interest. 

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS:  You yourself are a member of the City Council of Pleasanton, California.  You live this stuff.  Does that inform your work as a teacher?

COOK-KALLIO:  Oh, my.  I don't think that when I ran for City Council that I could even imagine how valuable the information that I've gained from being in the middle of it has been, in terms of teaching students how things work.  To be someone who has to sit up there and decide whether you're going to do something for Person A or Person B, and that this is going to profoundly affect their life for a long time, is a huge responsibility.  And it really has, I think, helped me articulate why this is so important.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS:  If you could say, just in a sentence or two, what you think the most important lessons of your own experience are, what would those be?

COOK-KALLIO:  I think that it's extremely important to be able to show the students that you really believe in what you teach.  I remember saying to a student once--I was talking about the Constitution--when you have something that is so special like the kind of government that we live with every day, it's important for kids to understand that it's all there.  It has prevailed, and it's prevailed because it allows everybody to be included.

 Image from Cook-Kallio's profile on the League of Women Voter's SmartVoter.org