Podcasts about inica

At this week's Round Table, Emily, Emmanuel, Hannah, Heba, and Inyoo welcomed back former podcast hosts extraordinaire Inica, Kenisha, and Madeline for a rousing conversation about, well, everything!  It was thrilling to be in conversation with people who have been in our roles in the past and to hear about the impact Next Gen Politics and this podcast have continued to have on how they engage with the world. We loved learning about their experiences in college–and getting their advice on navigating the stresses of high school and the college application process. As they are all at top rated universities, they had great counsel about how to take things in stride and focus on what matters most: our overall health and wellbeing–and getting some extra sleep. YVote/ Next Gen Politics is truly a fellowship and we deeply enjoyed the opportunity to be in conversation and community with our forebears. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nextgenpolitics/message

 The 9th annual Fall for Dance North festival runs September 26th to October 7th 2023, with both free and ticketed in-person and digital events.Tkaronto Open is a free event, co-presented with Union, and will take place on September 30th at Union Station's West Wing. Doors open at 10am with the competition starting at noon.Visit ffdnorth .com for more info.This episode of Mambo was produced by Johnny Spence and Ben Whiteley, with help from Milana Glumicic.Our theme music is by Johnny Spence.Thanks for listening.

At this week's Round Table, Inica and Madeline spoke with Jade Zaroff, founder of Entertainment for Change. Jade was raised as a performer and from an early age recognized that being an artist is being an observer of life. She's long asked herself questions like “why don't we care about the planet? Why do we treat people differently? How can we use art intentionally to tell stories using the 17 Sustainable Development Goals to help people work for change?” This led Jade to found Entertainment for Change, blending the arts, business, and entrepreneurship, and to trademark the term “Impact Artist,” which she was shocked to discover didn't exist. Last year Jade launched the Impact Artist curriculum for 100 youth ages 9-17 at French Woods summer camp to great acclaim and she's continuing to grow it. We loved hearing about the innovative programming she's created and talking about change and success more broadly. Change is very personal for Inica these days. This week's podcast was her last, after three great years being with you weekly as a podcast host. As she heads off to Barnard College this fall, she look forward to joining you as a fellow listener of The Round Table. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica and Madeline spoke with inspiring rising high school freshman Lyla Petroske about her work in electoral college reform. Lyla recently founded The Electoral College Reform Movement (ECRM) as part of her mission to fundamentally reform the Electoral College in a way that will destroy its faithfulness to the majority and give a voice to the United States' minorities. She is a fierce advocate for a fractional proportional system that would be a compromise between the Electoral College and the popular vote, and what would provide what she perceives as the best of both worlds. When Lyla first started investigating the Electoral College–back in fifth grade…–she initially thought it should be abolished and that it was standing in the way of democracy, truth, justice and the American Way. Upon deeper investigation, she came to feel that the Electoral College serves a significant role in the United States and should NOT be outright abolished. She came to feel that something more than the popular vote is necessary to incorporate different priorities in different places with integrity, reminding us that the United States is more than just a country: it's a collection of states. We talked about Lyla's “click moment”--what activated her around this complex topic at such a young age; the youth enthusiasm gap; and what ECRM is and how you can get involved. Oh and we also celebrated INICA'S FIRST VOTE. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Kenisha, andMadeline spoke with the energizing Ave Mateo, Executive Director of 18byVote. Ava believes deeply in the power of youth and works to spread opportunity for meaningful engagement among teens and young adults. In addition to her work leading 18by, Ava recently completed a Sociology and Education Masters degree at Columbia University, Teachers College, where her research focused on the influence of youth-led organizations and youth-led educational programs on young people's sociopolitical identity development. Needless to say, we were THRILLED to speak with her and to learn more about what she's done and what she's cooking up with 18byVote. We talked extensively about what it takes to get young people ready, excited, and prepared to vote–especially those who haven't historically been politically engaged. We explored what Ava thinks are the most impactful things young people can do BEYOND voting, the power of nonpartisan approaches, how to channel disagreement into productive discourse, and the core values that draw us to and ground us in this work. We also talked about where work like this should be rooted: Ava shared her belief that public schools should be stimulants for democracy, providing access and education to create informed engaged citizens, BUT schools have instead strayed to be more focused on workforce development. She encouraged as, as young people, to advocate for more civics in and out of the classroom to be active participants in democracy. We will, Ava, we will–and we hope you will too. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Erina, Inica, Jack, and Kenisha spoke with Mika Rao, Communication Partner at Transcend Education and a proud South Asian American, professional, and woman about the role her identity has played in her life and work over the past 25 years. Mika shared how, growing up in a majority white neighborhood in the 1980s, she was curiously “unraced” and didn't really come to consciousness about her heritage until she reached college, and she's been making up for lost time ever since. Inspired by Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we talked about how a person's identity intersects with their experiences in education (three of us are AAPI women) and how seemingly little things–like having one's name pronounced correctly in roll call–can affect students' world view and sense of well being, separating you from the community and make you feel like an outsider over the years. We suspect at least 80% of students of color have had their name stumbled over, in a micro aggression that many have come to accept. This is one of the reasons Mika is so passionate about her work at Transcend, which works to foster leaps towards equitable learning that focus more on belonging and identity than most traditional school reform models do because research shows that students do better when that's the case. We talked at length about the problems with the model minority myth and Mika shared how what used to irritate her a little bit now outrages her, because minority communities shouldn't be made to feel we have to compete instead of to work together. She is committed to being a good ally and to recognizing how, although we ALL experience racism and micro-aggressions, the history of African Americans in this country requires all of us to work together for change around anti-Blackness WHILE working to lift up and celebrate our AAPI identities. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

at this week's Round Table, Inica, Madeline and Jack spoke with Raj Vinnakota, President of the Institute for Citizens and Scholars. Raj has dedicated his career to educating, empowering, and supporting America's youth, particularly those from disadvantaged communities. Did you know that the United States spends on average just 5 cents per student on civics vs an average of $50 per student in STEM?? Compound that over four years and you can better understand the civic catastrophe we've been living through. A few years back, fueled by concerns about the state of our country, Raj led a national study focused on rethinking civic education, supported by funders across the ideological spectrum. A core conclusion of the report is that developing citizens is much broader than anything that can be taught within the typical senior elective. Schools can't do it all; this is a societal responsibility and to equip youth for the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century, we must tap into ALL the places citizenship in ALL the places it can be developed. This informs the Institute of Citizens and Scholars' mission to ensure that a majority of young people become effective citizens who are well-informed about civic issues, productively engaged for the common good, and hopeful about the future of democracy. We couldn't endorse this mission more and hope you feel the same. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack & Kenisha spoke with Lina Sergie Attar, Founder and CEO of the Karam Foundation, about the refugee crisis, which is on many of our minds given what's happening in Ukraine. Karam means generosity in Syrian and the Karam Foundation, founded in 2017, invests in young Syrian refugees to help shape a new generation of kind, courageous future leaders. Lina's path to, and vision for, refugee education was unconventional from that of many others in the humanitarian field, which provides her with a different perspective on refugee work. With a background in architecture, creativity is at the forefront of what she does. Coming to the work with fresh perspective, and listening DEEPLY to people, she has learned a LOT about what refugees need versus what is actually offered to them. Her work is steeped in notions of radical generosity, which is necessary to help those who have been displaced recover from what they've lost and to prepare for lives and livelihoods beyond. The Karam Foundation approaches this work as investment rather than aid. It's not about providing “just enough” or basic skills–it's about helping people hone in on their potential and work towards their dreams. Karam is committed to giving refugees' agency and enabling them to be co authors in forging solutions rather than subjecting them to top down solutions we know don't work. Through this, Karam creates a ripple effect, instilling the people they serve with commitment to creating positive change wherever they are and whatever they are doing. She–and we–feel it's not enough just having your life protected; it's about having your humanity protected. It's about thriving, not just surviving. Refugees want no less—and need much more. We were incredibly inspired by Lina's transformative mindset. Refugees are not a monolith and there are no forever solutions, which is why we need people like Lina and the Karam Foundation blazing the trail. If you'd like to support the Karam Foundation's vital work, you can do so here. Thank you for listening!! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Kenisha, and Madeline spoke with youth civic scholars from the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University and the Quill Project, which works to research the history and enhance understanding of some of the world's foundational legal texts. A core goal of the Quill Project, founded in 2016, is making the discussions that led to the creation of great legal documents of our time more accessible to students, and underscoring that what unites these documents is the way that they are written not by a single person but by a collective. We had a fascinating and far ranging conversation about what a constitution is and means—for real. It's more important to know, understand, and ground ourselves in the Constitution, at both the federal and state level, than many realize. While in general The U.S. Constitution isn't seen as a tangible thing that people can relate to, because it feels too removed from people's lives and too immovable, constitutions are actually much more living documents than we acknowledge. Guest Grace Mallon, incoming Kinder Junior Research Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute of the University of Oxford, grew up in England and was captivated by the US Constitution when she read about it in her history class–so much so that she continued on to do doctoral work about internal inconsistencies between the Constitution and history. Utah Valley Students Joseph Stanley and Antony Jackson have focused their academic work on state constitutions and now we understand why. While many of us didn't even realize that states HAD constitutions, we came to see how states can provide rights for their constituents beyond what the federal constitution does in some very exciting ways, which underscores the importance of local and state government as we always talk about. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Kenisha and Madeline spoke with Michael Mauser and Helen Hankin, two authentic intergenerational allies. Michael is the Co-Chair for the Braver Angels Nevada Statewide Alliance, and both Michael and Helen have both been active in both the Toastmasters International and the Rotary Youth exchange for decades, hosting 11 students from other countries over the years. Michael is motivated by the quotes “it's not enough to know, you also have to do things” and “When you can work with people, you get along better,” both of which clearly inform his thoughts and actions. Michael first got involved with Braver Angels at a time when he was depressed by the Presidential Debates, which were so different from the debates of his youth, which he felt had been more about seeking understanding. He watched a Braver Angel debate on YouTube between a pro Trumper and a liberal that was very civil and was heartened by what he experienced and how this illustrated his belief that we grow most by engaging with people who have totally different ideas than ourselves. Helen's ethos is informed by the question of “What does the community need and what will help them the most?” and she enjoys pursuing sustainable projects that can achieve both initial goals and long term objectives. We discussed the importance of seeking connection, not consensus, in conversations across difference; honing in on shared moral foundations; and seeing each other as people rather than parties. At root, though there are very real differences in priorities and values, we're all motivated to solve key problems of our times, which can be either a very powerful uniter or divider. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica and Kenisha spoke with John McNally, a Graduate Student at Teachers College who is studying the evolution and implementation of the Seal of Civic Readiness initiative in New York State as a lever for fostering high quality civic learning in schools. John is very passionate about civics, having served in the U.S. Army for 8 years before going to West Point, teaching social studies for many years, and raising three kids attending public schools in New York. We talked about how to foster civic identity–an issue we too are passionate about; how innovative districts are trying to reach kids where they are; and how to change the social structures around civic education to put it more at the forefront. John is a proponent of bringing civics to life through action civics, which involves students learning how to engage with issues relevant to us and the things that are affecting us, and our future, everyday. We talked about the importance of getting beyond the perception that politics isn't meant for young people, especially for low income communities of color who we most need to hear from. We explored how we can change the narrative by broadening the image of what civic engagement looks like and working to empower students to tackle local issues— for ex, things in their schools that aren't working– and to build up from there. We also talked about what civics in school would look like if WE were designing it. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

Tenemos muchas herramientas para combatir el crimen. Se hace desde las Fuerzas y Cuerpos de Seguridad de Estado y también, de otro modo, desde el ámbito privado. Y la criminología y la criminalística manejan ciencias muy distintas para aproximarse a la verdad y acorralar al malvado. Hablamos de la lucha contra el crimen con el director de INPEVAL y de INICA, Luis Alamancos. Twitter: @FPCaballero y @ESCrimenes Correo: elsenordeloscrimenes@gmail.com Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Jedd and Kenisha spoke with Chaitra Nagaraja, associate professor of strategy and statistics at the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University. Chaitra loves statistics and how they can be applied to a variety of social issues to illuminate who we are and how we live in democracy together. She quoted James Madison's point that if we don't know about our population, how can we govern? Statistics can help tell us who we are and how we need to improve. They can also help us replicate models that can be used productively in creating policy. That said, Chaitra reminded us that every statistic has politics behind it and, unfortunately, policies based on statistics often aren't updated and thus don't reflect the evolution of society. We grappled with a quintessential challenge of statistics– their inability to take into account nuance and human variables. Chaitra feels this is best countered by reminding ourselves that nothing is objective and being cognizant of the decisions behind how to measure something. Understanding statistical principles, such as that correlation doesn't imply causation, are key to understanding various phenomena in our world. We agreed that melding data analysis and trend analysis with personal stories can be particularly powerful and illuminating. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Jedd, and Kenisha discussed an issue on many of our minds: the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As we were doing so, we were keenly aware of how each day brings new developments, some hopeful and many devastating. As high school students born well after the Cold War, we study the historical catastrophes of World War I and II, and had hoped that we were past them. We now find ourselves recognizing the strength of imperialism and trying to figure out the implications. We oscillated between talking intellectually and emotionally, reflecting upon the devastation being wreaked on so many innocent civilians as well as the larger economic implications at a time when so many have already been negatively impacted by Covid. We are all grappling with how to situate ourselves in a global conflict of this magnitude–we can't divorce ourselves from it as we watch the war unfold and impact people's humanity in live time. In an article last week, Thomas Friedman noted that one of the most hackneyed phrases in journalism is “the world will never be the same” and yet it may be appropriate to apply to the connected conflict we're living through. If countries don't respond in a serious and significant way, we will see more authoritarian land grabs and more groups at risk, so the stakes are very very high. We are living in very challenging times, making us all the more grateful to be in conversation with each other and with you. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Erina, Inica, Jack, and Kenisha spoke with Allison Lichter Joseph, Assistant Professor and Chair of Journalism + Design at The New School. She is the co-author of the Matriarchy Report, a newsletter that investigates solutions for families and care workers from an intersectional feminist perspective. All of us podcasters have a real passion for the intersection of politics AND journalism so this conversation was particularly interesting for us. We loved hearing Allison's vision of community-rooted journalism rather than parachute journalism, which has done a lot of damage to different communities. We were riveted to learn more about solutions journalism as a counterbalance to so much negativity and pessimism in the press. Allison underscored that for every problem, there are solutions and journalism should be responsible for shining a light on them because solutions exist, at many levels. It's incredibly important for journalists to engage in asset framing, especially when reporting on communities of color, seeing communities not for their problems but how people are helping each other out. We dug into the model of “Communities of Care” that imagines social systems that truly take care of us so we can take care of each other and expand our belief about what's possible. We were inspired by Allison's conception of a journalist as being a facilitator as much as a mouthpiece–listening, convening, brokering resources and knowledge sharing. What will it take for journalism to achieve these ideals? For one thing, people probably have to pay for news– we need to move beyond a model that depends on advertising. Further, young people need to become sophisticated consumers, managing our attention, filtering fact from fiction, navigating the information ecosystem, and driving the news of the future. By listening to this podcast, you're indicating that you are part of this new wave. We thank you and we hope you enjoy this episode! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Kenisha and Madeline spoke with Ross Dakin of the New Jersey Office of Innovation. Ross is a technologist whose background spans Silicon Valley startups, corporate enterprise, federal/state/local government, national non-profits, and academia. This made him a perfect match to work for New Jersey's first Chief Innovation Officer, a role created as part of Gov Murphy's commitment to making the state cutting edge and to showing how government can be more innovative in how it provides services. Ross currently focuses on alleviating unemployment and facilitating small business growth, with a special emphasis on Covid recovery, and loves the opportunity to translate work he did as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow from the federal to the state level. Ross helped us understand how ubiquitous and important tech is–and as such, the enormous equity questions it creates. We talked about the tensions of being cutting edge vs being built to last, the importance of trust–and the dangers of the current widespread distrust of government; and the challenges of scale–the government can't (or shouldn't…) choose its customers.. We shared eye-opening insights about what, and who, the government is. Ross underscored that the United States is a 250 year old experiment whereas China is a 2000 year empire. As such, we can't rest on our laurels and we NEED technology to help us address the many threats of our time. Ross encouraged us–and our listeners–to go into public service, emphasizing that if you have ability and enough passion, there's no way you won't change the world. You're sure to be inspired by this episode. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Kenisha and Vanessa spoke with Halley Potter, Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation, where she researches public policy solutions for addressing educational inequality with special focus on school integration. We talked about issues our education system is facing and what we can do with them, what equality in education would look like, and how we can reconcile what we currently see in schools and classrooms with what we want to see. Halley underscored that we value diversity… as a concept; it's far harder to achieve in practice. She underscored that school segregation didn't happen by accident or by individual choices. Decades of policy have created the systems and structural barriers that lead to segregation as the default. Charter schools have potential to be sites of integration as a result of combining choice and enrollment features and diversity controls IF diversity goals are front and center, which they generally aren't. These things can't just be left to the free market; as things stand, charter schools are not very integrated as a whole. The challenging reality is that you can't tell if a school is integrated by looking at demographics along–you really need to analyze who is attending, who is teaching and in what configurations (for example, gifted programs within schools are often highly segregated), is the curriculum reflective of all students' experiences, and more. One thing we agreed could help us as we strive to build a better path is to step back and question assumptions about what the best learning environments are. Just because a school may have the best test scores does not make it the best school and unfortunately many of the most screened schools are segregated pressure cookers that don't benefit youth. Overall, Halley emphasized that choice isn't bad or good, it's a tool. We hope that listening to this episode will help you use that tool for good. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, and Kenisha spoke with Ian Rowe who, with apologies to Dos Equis, may be the most interesting man in the world. Ian is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on education and upward mobility, family formation, and adoption. Family, Ian underscores, is the first Institution every child is exposed to and the stability or instability of it influences everything else. Ian's academic and professional trajectory are the stuff that dreams are made of, and ultimately led to him heading the Public Prep network of charter schools for 10 years. School choice is not a theoretical construct, especially in places like the South Bronx where only 2% (!) of students graduate on time and at college-ready level. This informs his newest and most exciting endeavor launching a virtues based International Baccalaureate High School called Vertex Academies in the South Bronx in Fall 2022. Ian explained that schools are ALWAYS helping forge the character of students by the practices they put in place. They are ALWAYS sending messages about “what is the way we want you to operate in the world” so why not be explicit and intentional about it? Vertex will be oriented around four cardinal virtues–courage, wisdom, justice, and temperance–with an emphasis on how to live these virtues in action and across all curriculum for both the diploma and career pathways. One of the most important things students can learn is how to gain insights to make decisions that are right for you, which Vertex Academies aims to do. Ian noted that young people today are caught between two narratives: blame the system or blame the victim, both of which are very disempowering. He aims to counter this with his FREE framework– Family, Religion, Education, and Entrepreneurship–underscoring that young people who live by a moral code tend to do better. You'll be riveted by this episode. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Jack, Inica, and Kenisha spoke with Hassan Javed and Zoey Belyea of Citizen University's Youth Collaboratory, which focuses on equipping the next generation with the skills to build civic power and use it for good—right up our alley. We have to change narratives of power as part of this. Zoey and Hassan underscored that we can't solve problems with the same old strategy; we NEED to help young people realize and wield our individual and collective power. It's a key to transformation and empowerment, both societal and personal. Hassan talked about the pain of wanting to call out and address injustices he saw but not having a vehicle to do so. So HOW do we build power? By organizing of course! One person can bring four more people in. By building community and networks, especially of young activists, we can become civically super charged and start to change culture and, ultimately, cultural change is even more important than policy change. Yet it doesn't happen overnight or even over many nights and we have to hold the vision and be willing to work for it, day after day and night after night, and to pursue multiple avenues to find what works. The more we learn now—and maybe even the more we fail now—the more effective we'll be in 20-30 years. We loved how Zoey talked about using creative capacity to combine a logic framework with a heart centered approach to enable each of us to show up in ways that are fulfilling, loving, and inspiring and that help the world become the best version of itself. Here's to that version–and thanks for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, and Kenisha spoke with Naomi Schaefer Riley, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on child welfare and foster care issues. For decades, Naomi's work has focused on understanding how to identify and attend to those who are most vulnerable and at risk and how we can better support them. Today, that translates to focusing on the impact of remote schooling and the mental health crisis being experienced by adolescents, especially the most vulnerable, for whom things have gone from bad to worse while they have simultaneously become more invisible. The data is sobering: rates of suicide and suicidal ideation and substance abuse and overdosing have gone dramatically up. We talked about the impact of school closings and how important it is to adjust to Covid as the new normal and not be overly cautious: Naomi shared that a child is as likely to die from Covid as to die from playing Little League. She encouraged us to think of Covid like we think of the flu, for which 20,000 kids are hospitalized every year and we survive. Naomi feels that the billions of dollars the Federal Government has poured into schools hasn't been well used, and that schools are trying to adhere to too many policies to their–and our– detriment. Further, she would get rid of quarantining as she thinks it's impossible to run institutions with it. We also talked about the foster care system–there are 440,000 kids currently in the system and rampant cases of abuse and neglect—and what it would take to reform it in meaningful ways. It was a super interesting conversation; we hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Kenisha, and Madeline spoke with Charles Tocci, Assistant Professor of Social Studies Education at Loyola University Chicago. Professor Tocci's work explores the connections between American education and democracy in the past and in the present–so as you can imagine, we had a vibrant conversation. We talked about what makes for good civic education–and how often the reality of what's on offer falls short of that. Civics has many facets and many features. We agreed that a good civics class should focus on power: how do we access, exercise, and share power? What role do each of us play? How do we make decisions that address the common good? How can we have a collective mindset that makes us feel powerful rather than powerless and rudderless? We agreed that highlighting that we all have a relationship to power—through whether or not we vote, through writing to council members, etc–and reflecting upon how we participate in and circulate power, both currently and over the course of our lives, should be central. As young people, we often don't see ourselves pictured in government—but we should: we are the missing link. Charlie shared that the bar is often lower than we might think: if 13 constituents reach out to a legislator about an issue, that legislator will often investigate. That said, another key civics lesson we discussed is that you're going to lose. A lot. It's important to build civic persistence and resilience if we aspire to be lifelong change-makers. We need to play the long game, and collectively imagine new ways to do politics. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table--our last of 2021, Inica, Jack, and Kenisha had the special holiday treat of being in conversation with two of our amazing alumni podcasters: Julianna Davis, from our founding podcast team and now a sophomore at American University—deemed by some as the most “liberal school in America”-- and Divya Ganesan, from last year's podcast team who is now a freshman at Stanford University. It provided a good opportunity to reflect on core values from NGP that they have carried with them to college: pragmatism, commitment to broadening and deepening our understanding, investment in hearing others' perspectives and thinking about how people's backgrounds affect their views, how vilification prevents us from being able to hear others, the value of learning from experts on topics of interest. We had an open and constructive conversation about the challenges of polarization on campus and how those are exacerbated by online exchanges and social media (“anyone can be a keyboard warrior” as Julianna put it.) We debunked some myths: that the path to and through college is linear (it's curvy!), that college culture is cutthroat (it's collaborative!), that there's a tradeoff between freedom of thought and expression (it's essential for true learning!), and that members of Gen Z aren't mature enough to engage in sophisticated political conversations (which just may be operating under a different belief system…) Most importantly, we enjoyed reconnecting with one another and connecting with you, our beloved listeners. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica and Madeline spoke with Bhawani Venkataraman, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Chair and Departmental Faculty Advisor for Natural Sciences and Mathematics at The New School. Professor Venkataraman focuses on how chemistry can be made relevant to students and to issues of social justice and equity, and to how to get students thinking deeply and becoming informed voters—pretty cool, right? Connect macro with molecular with social Making sense of the world today requires integrating multiple disciplines, and so she strives to connect the molecular world with macro social issues. More specifically, Professor Venkataraman's work tackles challenges around safe drinking water. We all have an intimate relationship w water and know it is essential to keeping us alive but what is it about the properties of good old H2O that makes it so? Water dictates so much about public health, safety, educational opportunities and is a POWERFUL medium for exploring the interconnections of human existence yet we rarely examine its centrality to our way of life, until after a tragedy like Flint, Michigan occurs. Professor Venkataraman works to make the invisible, visible–and visceral! She encourages us not to look at individual issues discreetly but rather to connect dots and look at systems, and to always hold issues of justice and equity at the forefront. She has a book coming out in February that connects the chemistry of water to the policies and management issues around drinking water, a connection we found fascinating and think you will as well. Life cycles should be at the forefront of policy making, esp for vulnerable populations. As such, Professor Venkataraman's work also focuses on how best to communicate basic scientific research on issues such as water quality, air pollution, and climate change to non-scientists–something we non-scientists really appreciated. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away...At this week's round table, Inica, Jack, & Kenisha spoke with Michael Preston and Rafi Santo from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop about how teens are engaging with public media, and media and social media more broadly today. We all expressed nostalgia for public broadcasting, connecting it to our youth, while not fully connecting it to our present. Which didn't surprise our guests because it mirrors findings in their By/With/For Youth: Inspiring Next Gen Public Media Audiences initiative, in which they spoke with tweens and teens across the U.S., asking them for their advice about what media producers should do if they want to engage with people their age, and how their lives have changed during the pandemic, producing the report The Missing Middle: Reimagining a Future for Tweens, Teens, and Public Media. We've grown up with access to the world at our fingertips, able to access anything, anytime, with the lines between work and play blurring because so much of both happen online. Our lives have been shaped by online interactions, which is a blessing and a curse. Technology evolves as quickly as we do—and what our younger siblings experience through technology may be very different than what we have. We loved discussing what a good, credible media technology ecosystem could look like--amidst the crisis of misinformation, disinformation, and polarizing media consumption--and the values that should undergird it. We loved speaking with our guests about the authentic learning lives of youth, and how to honor the very rich learning and problem solving that happens beyond the classroom, in large part thanks to what technology makes available to us . At root, questions about technology boil down to questions of values--what do we want to spend our time doing and learning, how do we create breathing space in our tech-dominated worlds, and what kinds of possible futures do we want for young people and for our citizenry? Most youth don't know what public media is, where to find it, and what's different from commercial media, but public media has an important role to play in a healthy democracy, particularly given how few purely public goods we have in the U.S. that aren't driven by profit. We all agreed that youth should play an active role not just in selecting what media we watch but in producing it: which is of course a core value of this for GenZ, by GenZ podcast. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's roundtable, Erina, Inica, Jack, Kenisha, and Madeline spoke with Alexios Rosario-Moore, clinical associate professor of educational policy studies in the Urban Higher Education program of the University of Illinois Chicago--the only graduate program that focuses on higher ed specifically in urban context. We dug into findings from his recent study, “Shocks to the System: An Ecological Analysis of the Pandemic's Disparate Impact on Undergraduate Students at UIC,” which surveyed 1273 undergrads with a 74 item questionnaire asking about academic, economic, social, and other impacts they've experienced through COVID. The study explored what factors are most disruptive and--surprise surprise--found a big difference between young people who are in well resourced homes vs those who aren't, in terms of being more adaptive to adversity. Students who were burdened with family responsibilities have generally fared worse through Covid. Interestingly, Alexios has found that self perception varies and that some students experience more adversity than others but don't perceive it as such--for ex, a student might perceive having to work out of a room shared with a sibling as more stressful than another student who has lost a family member. The disruption of peer networks likely had a significant negative impact on mental health and academic engagement across the board. What are the implications, now and for the future? Tune in to hear our takes. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Kenisha, Madeline, and Vanessa talked about the complexities involved in reflecting on and celebrating Thanksgiving (and many holidays), building on last year's #RedefineThanksgiving episode. We engaged with a panoply of important questions: Is it OK to celebrate Thanksgiving? Should we be changing how we celebrate based on what we understand about the historical roots--and should Native Americans be the ones reshaping the tradition? Should we be celebrating native people, or native suffering? How do we appropriately honor the historic legacy--and debunk false ideas--within and beyond classrooms? How can we walk the fine line between celebrating a holiday that has sentimental value for many of us without belittling very real historical suffering and exploitation? Are the ideals of gratitude and cooperation worth celebrating symbolically even if they're not rooted in historic precedent? Is what the holiday has come to mean in America today more important than whatever happened 300 years ago? Does repeated reflection on the oppression Native Americans faced in fact draw attention AWAY from current issues, honing our focus on past wrongs instead of present ones? But what are the dangers of overlooking historical atrocities? And, perhaps most importantly, how do WE as individuals acknowledge all the baggage and still have a good time this holiday, given that coming together for celebration is so important—more this year than ever in the wake of Covid? Madeline reminded us that there's nothing we can do about the past, it's how we look at things moving forward that matters, and the deeper and more diverse education we can provide on these fronts, the better. We hope this podcast is part of that education. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At the week's Round Table, Kenisha, Inica, Jack, and Madeline spoke to Sam Laskin, a sophomore at Dartmouth College who is the Head of Growth and Outreach for the Left-Middle-Right, a student-run multi-media publication aiming to elevate the civil discourse in a time of division and extreme political polarization. Every week, LMR publishes three political perspectives on a single issue to expose their audience to content they wouldn't seek out themselves. LMR is committed to countering misinformation, exaggerated or partial truths, and non facts by providing articles from varying perspectives to ensure people are getting information from a variety of sources rather than just hearing from far right or far left. Further, LMR's articles are labeled yes, no, and maybe rather than Democrat, Republican, and Center to avoid knee jerk responses. This is also responsive to what LMR's founders hear from fellow college students about not necessarily having preconceptions about politicians and appreciating nuance and individuality. LMR wants to make people more aware without having to choose sides or perceive of things or people as bad just because we disagree--a refreshing change to media that amplifies extremes and makes us seem more divided than we are. This is a critical component of helping readers think about our biases and how we can set them aside to build the solutions our country needs. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Kenisha, Jack, and Madeline spoke with ​​Alexander Cooley, the Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College and Director of the Harriman Institute for the Study of Russia, Eurasia and Eastern Europe at Columbia University, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year! Professor Cooley helped us understand international politics and historic domination by the US by drawing an analogy to Walmart that we won't soon forget. Change can come from places we don't expect and things that seem dominant can be toppled—like Amazon superseding Walmart. So what went wrong? Professor Cooley talked us through the many variables. We talked about the War on Terror, the illiberalism of most international orders, the CNN effect and how the rise of global media has mitigated it, the benefits and limitations of international rankings, and American hypocrisy—along with the role of technology in making the gap between rhetoric and reality more apparent. Professor Cooley helped us understand how states are social creatures that, like all social creatures, want to project certain images. He helped us recognize that the United States can't be all things to all countries; we have to be principled and to think about priorities and not be in constant competition with everyone else. All politics is about power but also about trade offs and figuring out what we are willing to give up to advance what we care most about. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

How can you make meaningful change in politics if you don't have the resources and networks to do so? Well that won't be a problem if Nick Guthman, the founder of Blue Future, achieves his vision. At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Kenisha, and Madeline sat down with Nick to talk about how to empower and equip youth change makers in their own communities. Blue Future is a youth progressive political action committee striving to provide youth with the resources, knowledge, networks, skills, confidence, and support to join and create social and political movements. Nick was inspired to launch Blue Future through his own experience as a teen activist, both in terms of what worked for him and barriers to engagement that others face, especially coming from more under-resourced backgrounds. Interested in learning more about Blue Future & the impact they're making on elections? Interested in learning about the training process for youth? Tune in, you don't want to miss this one. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, and Madeline discussed the TV show that's taken the world—and our podcast—by storm: Squid Game. Unless you've been living under a rock (or, perhaps, in North Korea…) you've undoubtedly heard about Netflix' most successful series ever. We were reeled in just like the rest of the world and were eager to discuss with each other--and our listeners--what does it mean, and what are the implications for our lives? The show is both very in your face AND very symbolic. We found it somewhat thrilling to watch—and deeply unnerving to reflect on societal implications. How should we engage with the social commentary? How much is it a parable for capitalism and the state of affairs in South Korea--and beyond? Is the lesson that greed and desperation will trump decency and humanity--or the opposite? Our conversation got deep and dark at points, as we wondered whose squid game are WE in? And does it ever end? Please note: there are spoilers galore in this episode so you won't want to listen if you haven't yet watched the show or plan to. But if you've watched it or are gore-averse, listen in and let us know what YOU think. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Kenisha, and Madeline sat down with leaders of the National History Academy. President and co-founder Willam (Bill) Sellers noted that there are many STEM programs, business programs, and law programs over the summer, but not history programs. That's what inspired him to start the National History Academy: to give a voice to history and create academic opportunities for students to discuss our country's history. Guest Katie Smolar, a former teacher who is currently the director of educational programs for the National History Academy, underscored the need for entities like National History Academy to help students expand their historical and civic knowledge, since many textbooks have been outdated since SHE was in high school. Additional guests Ben Kellerhals & Dominique Castanheira, two past National History Academy scholars, shared how their love of history was nurtured by the National History Academy--and how they discovered the community they'd been looking for-- and are now pursuing college coursework in history. From case studies to field trips to debates, we discussed the challenges facing America. Throughout the episode, we discussed how we must rethink the way we teach history and civics and encourage thought, discussion, critical analysis, and interaction with others. History isn't just learning names and dates, it's also about putting yourself in historical situations and taking the diverse knowledge you learn from all kinds of different people to bring it back to your communities. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Erina, Inica, Jack, Madeline, and Kenisha decided to not have any guests In order to discuss our perspectives on how it's been adjusting to the environment of in-person school. We discussed both our pressing concerns about the role the pandemic has played on the school system alongside the utter pleasure of meeting classmates after a year in remote learning. Through this pandemic, we agreed that we all have changed so much and gained new profound interests. But much was lost as well: family members have passed, friendships are gone, connections between people have been lost, school was no longer something to look forward to. Most students' mental health declined as the need for social interaction is vital for our teenage lives and we were deprived of it. As in-person instruction has resumed, we asked each other hard questions:. Is going back to school worth it in a pandemic? How can we follow guidelines when it is sometimes physically impossible to do? Is the joy of going back to school worth it if the cost is a few positive Covid cases? In short, in this podcast episode, you'll hear our takes on being back in school. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Kenisha, and Madeline spoke with Carolyn Sufrin, MD/PhD and an assistant professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Director of the Advocacy and Research on Reproductive Wellness in Incarcerated People program; and who serves on the board of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. Dr Sufrin worked as an OB GYN in a jail for 6 years. Fun fact: imprisoned folks are the only population who legally have guaranteed healthcare stemming from a Supreme Court case in 1976 in which not providing healthcare was deemed cruel and unusual punishment and a violation of the 8th amendment. Sadly, this guaranteed provision does NOT translate into quality--there is LOTS of neglect and getting screenings, getting ADEQUATE care, getting abortions, and getting appropriate medications are hard to come by in prison. Unfortunately, getting unnecessary surgeries isn't--Carolyn told us about myriad women in CA who have been unnecessarily sterilized. Carolyn was influenced by reproductive rights activism she did in high school, and seeing the potential of medicine to activate social justice. She was further influenced by the field of reproductive justice, which centers black women whose experiences have been devalued and diminished, and contextualizes these violations within a broader human rights framework. As a first year Resident in Medical School, she was called to support the delivery of a baby by a woman who was SHACKLED TO THE BED--and her career path advocating for health care for incarcerated women was set. Through her work today, Carolyn looks at both statistics AND stories to get behind stereotypes. There are 218,000 women behind bars today, the majority btw 18-45, and 60% of whom are mothers responsible for children. The impact of incarceration is not just on women but families and communities. Further, as we know, there are profound racial disparities in incarceration that don't track w crime rates due to people having suffered from structural and systemic forces that have impacted them and the crimes they've committed, along w racism within the criminal legal system. We were so inspired by Dr. Sufrin and we know you will be too. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Kenisha, and Madeline spoke with David McCullough of the American Exchange Project (AEP) AEP is a first-of-its-kind, free exchange program in which you stay in your own country. That's right, you don't need a passport to experience different cultures given the diversity of America and how deeply​​ the political landscape varies in different regions. Based on his own experiences and conversations with some of the best thinkers about bridging divides in America, David recognized that one of the best ways to learn about different people and places is to experience them directly and so he cooked up this way to expand young people's perspectives by traveling, exploring, and learning more about the United States before they head into college. We talked about how the American Exchange Project came to fruition, what's been successful--and what's been challenging, and how David hopes to build out AEP in order to create the generational change we need. David reminded us that rather than worry about ‘saving America', young people can and should start with kernels of connection that can be forged by having fun, communicating with one another, and being the teenagers we are. Sounds good to us. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Kenisha, and Madeline spoke with Sasha Simon, leader of the BIPOC Mental Health Coalition, established in May 2020 and funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The Coalition is an emerging and diverse group of 30 youth-serving organizations across the nation and is dedicated to helping the mental health of BIPOC youth and advancing racial justice. Given the impact of Covid 19 over the past 18 months, social isolation, anxiety, depression, intergenerational trauma, and other issues have increased and the language, desires, & experiences faced by BIPOC youth have evolved. Sasha actively listens to youth for their input & learns more about the ways that intergenerational politics have stunted the mental health resources available to BIPOC youth. She reminds us, “As BIPOC folks, we have probably experienced our trauma for generations and there's a lot that needs to be unpacked. We need to speak, normalize, and seek out support.” Sasha encourages us, as youth, to have a liberating and revolutionary approach to mental health advocacy: she challenged us to start a petition, find resources for your community, to make mental health matter. We're posing that question to you too: how can YOU make a positive change around mental health in your community? Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

We came to this week's Round Table on our own--no guest-- so that we could speak in depth with one another and so you could get to know our newest podcasters, Jack and Kenisha, as well as veterans Inica and Madeline, a bit better than you might in an ordinary episode. We talked about the issue on most teens' minds--what will it be like to head back to school? Many of us are a year and a half older than when we were last in an actual school building. Are we a year and a half wiser? We talked about various tensions at hand--whether or not we think vaccines and masks should be mandatory; how do we socially distance in a school of 5000 at 150% capacity; how do we handle school lunch, which can't be done with a mask; how to we address the detrimental mental health impact of the pandemic; how can we empathize with those who have very different perspectives on all of this than we do? One thing is for sure--the year isn't going to be boring… Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica and Madeline spoke with Jennifer Wilson, Dean of Eugene Lang College and Associate Professor of Mathematics at Eugene Lang College. Dean Wilson loves math and she loves social change so she has found ways to entwine the two in her work. She studies the ways in which we make decisions and the fairness properties embedded in that, for good and for bad. Voting is a quintessential way citizens make decisions and thus is of particular interest to her. Dean Wilson is deeply invested in plurality vs majority systems, and is closely analyzing the recent primaries in New York City, which used ranked choice voting (RCV) for the first time. Of course SOME aspects of RCV can be approached mathematically (like the spoiler effect) and others can't (like does it impact how candidates approach the campaign) but analyzing it mathematically can help us step back, gain objectivity, and think LESS about campaigning as a sport and MORE about the structures we use to make decisions--and then to critique and improve them. A mathematical lens (specifically collective game theory) can also be helpful in analyzing the bandwagon effect--that is, what are the reasons for candidates to support one another as they're gaining momentum—and gerrymandering to produce more or less competitive races. Needless to say, Jennifer Wilson's work and this episode will help you think differently and more deeply about electoral math. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Kenisha, and Madeline spoke with Shaylyn Romney Garrett-- writer, speaker, and thinker-- who is trying to change America and the world for the better through connection and community in order to heal and renew our societies. Shaylyn is the coauthor with Robert Putnam of The Upswing: How America Came Together A Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, which provides critical insights for weaving a stronger, more united future for our country. Today, it seems the only thing we can all agree on is that America is in a bad place and on the wrong track. So Shaylyn and Professor Putnam engaged in vast, data driven work to examine the last 125 years of history through four lenses-- economic, cultural, political, and social-- to better understand ‘how we got here'. They made a breathtaking finding: all four lenses map the same trajectory, a trajectory that looks like an inverted bell curve. At the turn of the 20th century, we were extremely polarized and narcissistic across economic, cultural, political, and social matters, after which things started moving in a better direction for the ensuing 70 years until about the mid 60s, when everything started sliding back to the way it looked at the beginning of the 20th century. You could characterize that 100 year period as an I-We-I-century: polarized and narcissistic at the beginning and end, but unified and communal in the middle. Today, our country looks very similar to the America from the turn of the century- Gilded Age America. The lesson, however, is surprisingly optimistic. Instead of disparaging, The Upswing teaches us to learn from and act upon what actually happened after the Gilded Age: an age of unprecedented peace and shared prosperity. We've been here before and we can get out of our current toxic culture if we learn from and build on historical precedents. One thing we learned during the last upswing is that progress didn't come overnight. It took 60+ years, and even with all that was accomplished, not everything changed and progress around things like race and gender were insufficient. We have to do better in creating OUR upswing, and Shaylyn was the perfect guest to guide us in doing so. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, guest podcaster Vanessa, Inica, Kenisha, and Madeline spoke with renaissance woman Charli Kemp, founder of Change The Tune and doctoral candidate in education leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Charlie has tapped into EVERY kind of schooling over the course of her own education and professional career, which enables her to state with confidence that our systems are perfectly designed for the outcomes they create—and they're designed to fail. Students spend 80% of their lives OUTSIDE of school. By the time they reach 6th grade, this results in affluent kids having 6000 extra hours—or four extra years--of learning. It's not about creating better schools--even utopian schools can't touch that opportunity gap and, resultantly, the wealth gap. Change the Tune aims to, well, change that tune by leveraging universal connectors--things like music, food, and sports--through programming like “Just Us” Time, Holistically Dope, and Possibility Panels--to reimagine the extended learning experience for youth in a way that creates mastery and memories, which is where true learning happens. For her, education isn't about equality or equity--it's about liberation. Charli believes music is “the universal language of the soul,” a way to say “I see you,” and a panacea for societal problems--and she did a pretty great job convincing us of this throughout the episode. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Kenisha, and Madeline spoke with Seth Radwell, author of the recently released American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing our Nation. Seth is an internationally known business executive and leader in consumer marketing--who left it all to start a bottom up movement to, in his own words, “fight unreason with reason”. Seth helped us understand what the American Schism is and where it comes from through his investigative retracing of the roots of division, which is vital to understanding where we are today, how we got here, and what we have to do to heal our seemingly unbridgeable divisions. Indeed, rifts aren't uncommon in our history--our founders themselves had very different views of what the world should be; what's different today is the level of rancor and the dismissal of objective truth. Seth traces two long standing orientations, moderate and radical--and the tensions between them--through six different periods up through today in order to distill core questions necessary to save democracy. Seth reminds us that democracy is a hard system of government. It requires an educated populace and educated points of views. If we reject objective truth, it can't be sustained. We so appreciate listeners like you who are committed to truth, justice, and democracy. Thank you for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Kenisha, and Madeline spoke with Jeanette Castellanos, Vice President of the Social Impact Collective at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). Jeanette's career has been at the intersection of social justice, education, and innovation. We talked about what social justice means today; what it looks like in a professional context, formally and informally; and how it does and doesn't play out in education today. Jeanette underscored that as long as there's not equity in education, there's unlikely to be equity elsewhere. Having access to high quality education for everyone, regardless of your zip code or economic status, is a linchpin for everything else. We talked about how social justice should be more fully woven into the K-12 curriculum, especially at the middle school level, which is a critical crossroads for civic identity. We talked about the need to disrupt the traditional notion of school THEN employment to instead explore how learning and earning can be more integrated. We all agreed that we have to broaden our conception of education to extend well beyond the classroom--and to include things like this podcast. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Isaiah, Kenisha, and Madeline spoke with Sherene Crawford and James Brodick from the Center for Court Innovation about their visionary criminal justice reform work. They are both very mission driven: Sherene sees criminal justice as the civil rights issue of the 21st century and James is compelled by conviction that we are all one and thus must drive community change together, focusing on those who have been most poorly served by the systems we currently have. They both feel strongly that community based organizations are a critical bridge between communities and courts--and the best way to inspire community problem solving. We talked about their work finding more holistic alternatives to the broken system of incarceration, the challenges of solving problems when there's a lack of trust across stakeholders, the pendulum swings of responses to crime, the importance of holding government accountable for doing well by all who are impacted by the carceral state, and their hopefulness about the rise in progressive prosecution. They encouraged us to think about reform from within the system as well as outside of it. We honed in on the fact that we ALL want the same outcome: safer communities. The friction is around HOW to do it. We are inspired by the fact that there has been serious progress made in reducing incarceration—AND we still have a long way to go. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Isaiah, and Madeline spoke with two of our O.G. podcasters, Julianna Davis and Riya Mehta. If you haven't listened to our first season podcasts from last year, we highly recommend you go back to hear their great work. We reflected on the very unusual 2020-21 school year through the lens of first year college students, discussing the heated political environment on college campuses; the social cost, and value, of being political in college; and the implications of most “political dialogue” transpiring through Instagram stories. We also talked about the value of “talking with” vs “talking at”--and ensuring that “talking with” includes people with divergent perspectives; pervasive lack of respect for nuance; and the importance of not jumping to conclusions about who someone is based on their views or posts (or lack thereof) and instead thinking about WHY people think the way they do. Together, we pondered the scary rise in hate crimes; whether more and, more importantly, different kinds of dialogue could help resolve some seemingly intractable divides; and how our views about social justice have or haven't changed over the course of this strange year. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Kenisha, Jack, and Madeline spoke with Micky Ayoub about his experiences as a campaign and community organizer and about his recent article Four Ways To Actually Understand Someone You Disagree With. Micky was honest about just how hard this can be to do in practice--and why it's important to keep trying. We talked about the value of not defining someone by their political alignment and beliefs; the importance of trying to establish a shared set of facts; and the necessity of figuring out where we DO and SHOULD draw a line and set personal boundaries. We also talked about what distinguishes Gen Z's approach to things--and why Micky thinks we are going to create powerful generational change. Micky lives by three core values-- community, service, and leadership--all of which came across loud and clear in our conversation. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Isaiah, Madeline, and guest podcaster Jack Flanigan spoke with Eric Torres, a doctoral student at Harvard School of Education, about promoting dialogue across political differences but with a switch--this time our guest asked questions of us instead of the other way around. We talked about the state of civil discourse in and outside of classrooms, what it takes for dialogue to be productive rather than argumentative, and concerns about the absence of facts in too many of these conversations or, as I put it, how “every one is an expert on everything without actually knowing anything.” We all agreed that productive political dialogue in schools is almost an oxymoron and that building students'--and teachers'--skills around engaging in hot button dialogue would be very, very valuable. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Divya, Inica, and Madeline spoke with Willoughby Winograd, on leave from his junior year at Stanford serving as Program Director of Deliberations.US at Equal Citizens. Willoughby's work focuses on getting Americans to discuss the issues we SHOULD be discussing in order to restore the core promise of political equality. This includes conducting Deliberative Polls around the world-- events which bring together people from a range of backgrounds to discuss the political issues facing their communities to foster thoughtful, informed opinions. We talked about his (unexpected) path to this work, perceptions about the rise of polarization in the U.S. (spoiler alert: data shows that there hasn't been much of a change in our country's political divide since the 1970s), and what fuels--and counteracts--polarization. We also talked about how to set up effective deliberations that help us get beyond echo chambers and orthodoxy--something we are all deeply invested in. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Divya, Inica, Isaiah, and Madeline spoke with Andy Danilchick, CoFounder and Director of the Project for Mental Health and Optimal Development (PMHOD) at Penn Graduate School of Education. We spoke about the impact of the last 14 months on students' mental health and well being--and the conditions that will nurture them on the other side. Andy shared the guiding question he and his Center have operated by during the pandemic: how do we help in this time of intense pressure and change that educators and students are facing? We talked about the toll Covid and other stressors are taking on both students and teachers--and how differently they're playing out for some than others; the importance of learner-centered approaches; and what else schools can do to support students' mental health and flourishing. Oh, and we talked about our OWN mental states. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Divya, Inica, Isaiah, and Madeline spoke with three of NYC's We Power Ambassadors: Caroline Ji, Felicia Trestin, and Nathaniel Valdivieso. They are among 32 Youth Ambassadors chosen from all across New York City to inspire and promote voting and civic engagement on behalf of the New York Campaign Finance Board's NYC Votes initiative. And inspire they did--we loved hearing them share what motivates them to do this work, what they've been learning through it, and how they hope to make an impact. We grappled with some of the traditional questions that come up around youth and politics: DO our voices matter? CAN the issues we care about influence elections? We talked about the challenges of opportunities of doing civic engagement outreach in COVID; the power--and peril--of social media; the dangers of raising a misinformed generation; and the importance of getting involved no matter how young you are. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

At this week's Round Table, Eliza, Inica, Isaiah, Madeline, Olivia, and new outreach director Tarika spoke with Jal Mehta from Harvard Graduate School of Education, where his work focuses on the modest topic of what it would take to improve American education. We talked about what deeper learning is--and isn't, why we shouldn't blame teachers for failing to foster it, why we need to think much more radically about what and how we teach--in and beyond the pandemic, what authentic assessment that could drive deeper learning could look like, and why extracurriculars like Next Generation Politics are powerful examples of deeper learning. In this year when PowerPoints have too often substituted for meaningful learning experiences, and zoning out has become more prevalent than ever thanks to Zoom, this episode is super timely and important. Thank you for joining us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message