Sophomore Celebrations: Washington, D.C., and Policy Defenses

The Class of 2025 ended their year traveling together to Washington, D.C., in early May and then returning to campus the next week to participate in the oral defense exercise developed more than a decade ago by our History Department. 

Our alumni regularly list D.C. and Big Bend as highlights of their FWCD years. Both trips involve a lot of hiking, one on D.C.’s malls and in Congress’s halls, one in the astounding desert mountains of West Texas. Both involve lots of learning, about classmates and about “how things work.” Big Bend tells us a lot about how geology (plate tectonics) and wildlife work; D.C. tells us a lot about how our laws and policy-making work.  

A few weeks ago, I enjoyed seeing photos from D.C. of our students around two particular U.S. Senators: Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz. We work to teach our students how to think, not what to think. Do they agree with Sanders? Do they agree with Cruz? They choose, and they defend their opinion. Exposure to very different views and approaches is invaluable.

On the first Thursday after the D.C. trip, the sophomores defend an entire policy position they spent weeks establishing as a part of their Government class. They might have made a proposal in their research project about nuclear power, or about a wall at the border with Mexico, or about FEMA funding. The students have unlimited options for their position paper. Whatever they have proposed in their paper, they are required to defend as a formal presentation on that Thursday evening. 

On policy defense night, parents are invited to sit in the back of the room while their child speaks, without notes, to convince a teacher (playing the part of a Congressman or Cabinet Secretary) of the wisdom of their proposal. That is a hard task, and it makes me proud to see it every year. I only got to see one round this year, but the same buzz was there as always, the same learning was going on as usual. 

Students who have been through our Sophomore Policy Defense are so well-prepared for so many future challenges involving presenting and defending their opinions. The program is a difference-maker. Bravo to Sophomore History Teachers Sara Teegarden and Steve Stackhouse for preparing the Class of 2025 so well.