Julie Silverbrook, a lawyer and now vice president of civic education at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, can trace what she calls her “civic spark” to two key moments in her childhood.
The first was when her parents took her to an historical reenactment of George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas night in 1776.
Then, as a fourth grader, she was stuck at home when a massive blizzard closed all the schools in her area for two weeks. Her mother, keen to keep her children occupied, assigned Silverbrook and her siblings to learn something new from the family’s encyclopedia set. Silverbrook happened to open volume C to the entry on the Constitution. She was hooked.
By the time she was back in school and her class was starting its government unit, Silverbrook was well along in her love affair with American civics.
“I said, ‘I’m going to do the Constitution for the rest of my life,’” she recalls. “And, in fact, I have done the Constitution for the rest of my life.”
Silverbook, who wrote about her experiences for The Hill, notes that her civic spark began with her parents. But, she adds, “it was sustained by the incredible educators in my life.”
This year, as buzz around the 250th commemoration of American Independence spreads across the news and social media, teachers have a unique, built-in opportunity to explore how history continues to shape the country, she says.
“Educators really do have this critical role to play to nourish the souls of our young citizens and … get them prepared for thoughtful and engaged citizenship,” Silverbrook says. “That’s always true. But at these inflection points in our history, where we are intentionally looking backward but also thinking about the next 250 years, it’s a particularly impactful moment to think of things in those ways.”
⚡ Adjusting to Political Volatility
Social studies teachers are poised for their moment in the spotlight, particularly after a year of uncertainty and debates over what they teach in the classroom, says Tina Ellsworth, president of the National Council for the Social Studies, which advocates for teachers.
Last spring, when the Trump administration targeted diversity, equity and inclusion policies for elimination, government-run websites began to alter or delete information. Educators noticed trusted online sources for American history, such as those for Smithsonian museums, were missing information.
It alarmed social studies teachers, about 80 percent of whom use online sources, including government and museum sites, when crafting their lessons, according to a 2024 study by the American History Association. (In the same survey, 32 percent of K-12 social studies teachers reported never teaching from a textbook.)
“We were all texting each other and emailing each other all around the country saying ‘download the things you know you like’ because we just weren’t sure if they were going to be there [for much longer],” Ellsworth says.
Pressures on the Smithsonian haven’t eased. White House officials set a deadline of this week for the institution to hand over detailed accounts of its exhibit plates, budgets and other content-related items, the New York Times reports.
A few school districts reacted strongly to the federal administration’s directives last spring, asking teachers to comply with rules that hadn’t yet been written, Ellsworth says. Others required teachers to go back to using only assigned textbooks. However, the majority of social studies educators did their jobs as usual and continue to do so, albeit newly vigilant about the volatile political environment.
“It doesn’t matter if teachers are on the right or the left, they all believe in the same democratic principles,” Ellsworth says. “There are these core things that we believe in and when those things get challenged, it can be unnerving because we know the history.”
Yet, social studies teachers’ high anxiety from last spring has mostly subsided, Ellsworth says. Instead they are excited about the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding and how it has raised the profile of their favorite subject.
“We’re like, ‘welcome to the party!’” Ellsworth says. “We like the attention. We’re actually nervous that it will be very short-lived.”
Civics experts agree that a significant benefit of the 250th anniversary of the formal break from British rule is it has generated interest among students in the specifics of how the United States — a brand-new country — formed, allowing for deeper, more meaningful classroom explorations. Emma Humphries, chief education officer at iCivics, says teachers are “leaning into history” to shed light on today’s headlines.
The redistricting debate to favor one political party over another happening in several states right now is an example.
“So why does it matter that they’re redrawing lines?” Humphries says. “To understand redistricting, you have to understand reapportionment. To understand reapportionment, you have to understand the census and why we have a census. To understand that, you have to know some basics about representation, at least at the federal level and how it works in Congress.”
And that leads to discussions about how the Founding Fathers arrived at our structure of government.
“And so you’re able to say, hey, this is about something that happened 250 years ago,” Humphries says. “It’s also about what’s happening today. And that’s a beautiful thing that is special to our discipline.”
⚡ Embracing New Resources for Civics Education
Several organizations have events planned around the 250th anniversary, many of them for kids, including the America’s Field Trip contest, Philadelphia’s 52 Weeks of Firsts, which kicked off this month, and the National Archives’ series of digital and in-person programs in its Civics for All of US initiative.
Archives and education groups are adding special programming for teachers. The Bill of Rights Institute and iCivics launched the Civic Star Challenge, a competition that encourages teachers to weave specific themes associated with the Declaration of Independence — including revolution and change; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; voting and consent of the governed — into their lesson plans and then submit short videos that capture the reactions of students and teachers to the curriculum.
And in collaboration with Colonial Williamsburg, iCivics devised “Investigation Declaration,” an interactive game in the vein of the former PBS show “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” Players explore world history to track the inspirations for the Declaration of Independence.
The civics-oriented Jack Miller Center in Philadelphia, with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, has Teaching America250 Awards — $5,000 grants for a teacher from each state and Washington, D.C., to carry out a project related to the Declaration of Independence. Winners were announced this month.
“It’s rewarding teachers who want to do really great work with students and just don’t have the resources to do so,” says Lauren Altobelli, who directs the center’s Founding Civics Initiative. “I’ve been reading the proposals and some of them are just so inspiring.”
In May, the center’s fourth National Summit on Civic Education will focus on the Declaration of Independence.
Both the National Constitution Center and Jack Miller Center are stepping up their professional development programs for educators in 2026 — in answer to concerns of recent years that social studies teachers have fewer ongoing training opportunities than other core-subject teachers.
In the short term, the 250th is bringing people together after a long period of division, Altobelli adds.
“There’s obviously a lot of polarization, a lot of distrust and unrest,” she says. “Social studies teachers deal with a lot of that just through the content they teach. But I do think that the 250th is offering some kind of unifying moment.”
Meanwhile, renewed interest in how civics studies can help today’s kids understand the present and prepare for the future may have long-term effects for education beyond 2026. Some states are already reviewing their social studies curriculum standards in response to a continuing decline in national test scores, Altobelli says. She hopes that focus on the 250th will persuade policymakers at the state level to boost civics teaching overall, “making sure that schools and teachers are supported, making sure they have the time to teach civics well.”
Greater support for civics learning would be more than welcome to the membership of the National Council for the Social Studies.
“We have been perpetually minoritized for quite some time,” Ellsworth says. She cites a 2024 paper by the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute for American Democracy detailing how civics education in American schools dropped precipitously after the 1960s, when the average student had at least three classes in civics through high school.
“Now most states have one class, and it’s usually a semester,” Ellsworth says. “This idea of having three classes in civics — oh my gosh, what a game-changer that could be for our democracy, man!”
