Deep Reads: Can a civics teacher persuade her students to believe in democracy?
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 July 2024
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
So far, polling suggests that young voter turnout in 2024 may not match 2020’s rate. In April, only 41 percent of Black people 18 to 39 told a Washington Post-Ipsos poll that they were certain to vote this year, down from 61 percent in June 2020.
The poll mirrored what Shannon Salter was seeing among her civics students, whose interest in voting had been hobbled by poverty, racism and two aging presidential candidates seemingly far removed from the world of a struggling Allentown, Pa., teen.
To these students, American politics was an ego-driven, aimless mess. She had more than a month to go before the end of the term to convince her students that their participation in American democracy was worth it. She had no idea how hard a sell that would turn out to be.
This story is part of our Deep Reads series, which showcases narrative journalism at The Washington Post. It was written and read by Greg Jaffe. Audio narration comes from our partners at Noa, an app offering curated audio articles.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Greg Jeffey, a national reporter for the Washington Post. |
| 0:04.0 | I wrote a story as part of our Deep Reed series, which showcases narrative journalism here at the post. |
| 0:10.0 | This is a story about Shannon Salter, a civics teacher in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and her goal to persuade her students to participate in American democracy. |
| 0:20.0 | I think she faced a lot of skepticism. The students are largely urban minority |
| 0:26.4 | students who didn't see themselves or their lives being taken into account |
| 0:31.2 | by either of the main presidential candidates or the two political parties. |
| 0:35.5 | I think it's a story about the struggle to get people to believe in American democracy, |
| 0:41.1 | to get young people to believe in American democracy at a time when the country's faith in its politics and its |
| 0:48.0 | political system is really wavering. |
| 0:50.9 | You know, I'm part of the democracy team here at the post and we look at or try to look at how Americans practice democracy. |
| 0:58.0 | What's working about our democracy? What's not working about it? |
| 1:02.0 | And so this was a way to sort of figure out how |
| 1:04.6 | young people saw our democracy and we were particularly interested in these |
| 1:08.9 | young people because they grew up in the era of Donald Trump. |
| 1:12.9 | They came of age, their first memories of politics |
| 1:15.6 | start in 2016. |
| 1:18.8 | This story will be read here by a narrator |
| 1:21.4 | from our partners at NOAA, news over audio.com, an app offering curated audio |
| 1:27.0 | articles. A note to listeners, this story includes profanity. Okay, here we go. |
| 1:35.0 | Shannon Salter checked the results of an online poll that she gave each year to her high school |
| 1:40.3 | civic students. |
| 1:42.4 | One of the questions asked whether they would support lowering the voting age to 16. |
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