By Jessica Hoover
Fishers Junior High School and Fall Creek Junior High School were among 14 participating schools in the Dec. 12 statewide We the People competition. According to Collin Gruver, director of Civic Education Programs at the Indiana Bar Foundation, We the People is a civic education program that teaches students the importance of government.
Participating schools spend the semester studying topics such as civil liberties and the institutions of government in preparation for the competitions. Students had to get through the regional competition in November to make reach the state competition. The winning school goes to the national competition in Washington, D.C.
“The big difference of We the People compared to others is that the competition is a simulated congressional hearing,” Gruver said. “The program has been around for 30 years, so when it was first founded they started doing this simulated congressional hearing in a form of a competition. That has remained for 30 years.”
During the competition, the students act as experts on constitutional subjects and current events and give prepared statements to a panel of adult judges. The judges will then ask follow-up questions, score and evaluate the teams, then declare a winner.
Although this year was the first time Fall Creek has competed, the team won second place in the regional competition. Fishers Junior High won the state competition for the second year in a row and moves on to the national competition in Washington D.C. in the spring. Gruver said the We the People program gives students an outlet where they can feel comfortable speaking up.
“It’s structured in a way that teaches the students that it’s important for them to know what’s going on and it’s important to understand that they have a voice,” Gruver said. “They should feel free to express what their opinions are on current events and things going on. For young people, you are so accustomed to being told what to do by your parents and your teachers at school. There’s not often times that students have a real voice, and I think We the People gives them that.”
