Workshop given at Adler University on September 14, 2015 as part of their "Mission Possible" week of activities focusing on social justice and change making. Presenter: Tom Tresser, Civic Educator & Public Defender. Tom teaches classes and conducts workshops, trainings and consultancies around civic engagement, community organizing, fighting privatization and creativity in civics.

1. “Civic Engagement
101”
Tom Tresser
September 14, 2015

2. Let’s get social…
#AdlerCivics
@tomstee
Let’s get referential…
http://civicchicago.wikispaces.com
Use this URL: https://wikispaces.com/join/PF4KTCP

3. LET'S START BY TAKING THIS CIVIC
ENGAGEMENT POLL VIA TEXTIZEN
HAVE YOU DONE ANY CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
ACTIVITY IN THE PAST 24 MONTHS?
IF YES - TEXT "YES" TO 312-883-8103
IF NO - TEXT "NO" TO 312-883-8103
Standard text message rates apply
Results @ https://www.textizen.com/polls/2941

4. Enjoy the music while results gathered…
IF YES - TEXT "YES" TO 312-883-8103
IF NO - TEXT "NO" TO 312-883-8103
HAVE YOU DONE ANY CIVIC
ENGAGEMENT ACTIVITY IN THE PAST
24 MONTHS?

5. What is “Civic
Engagement”?

6. Why Civic
Engagement?

7. Why Civic
Engagement?
Civic Engagement =
Working to make a
difference in the life of
your community.

8. Results…
https://www.textizen.com/polls/2941

9. CIVIC COMPETENCY – OUR CIVIC MUSCLES
• Civic mindset or “appetite”
• Civic knowledge
• Civic skills
• Civic experience
A Word document summarizing these “muscles” is on our Civic Wiki.

10. Civic mindset or “appetite”
Civic dispositions encompass interpersonal and intrapersonal
values, virtues, and behaviors. How likely are you to engage?
• Tolerance and respect
• Appreciation of difference
• Rejection of violence
• Concern with the rights and welfare of others
• Commitment to balancing personal liberties with social
responsibility to others
• Sense of belonging to a group or polity
• Readiness to compromise personal interests to
achieve shared ends
• Desire for community involvement
• Attentiveness (to civic matters, the news, etc.)
• Personal efficacy

11. Civic Knowledge
Civic content includes both core knowledge and the ability to
apply knowledge to different circumstances and settings. What
do you know.
• Key historical periods, episodes, cases, themes, and experiences of
individuals and groups in U.S. history
• Principles, documents, and ideas essential to constitutional democracy
• Structures, processes, and functions of government; powers of branches
and levels of government
• Political vehicles for representing public opinion and effecting political
change
• Mechanisms and structure of the U.S. legal system
• Political and civic heroes
• Social and political networks for making change
• Social movements and struggles, particularly those that address issues
as yet unresolved
• Structural analyses of social problems and systemic solutions to making
change

12. 12
Pretty basic civic knowledge…
• Percentage U.S. adults who can name all
three branches of government?
• Percentage U.S. Adults who can name all Three
Stooges?
Zogby International Poll, August 2006
73%
42%

14. Civic Skills
Intellectual civic skills encompass knowing how to identify,
assess, interpret, describe, analyze, and explain matters of
concern in civic life. What (and HOW) can you do?
• Perspective-taking
• Understanding, interpreting, and critiquing various media
• Understanding, interpreting, and critiquing different points
of view
• Expressing one’s opinions
• Active listening
• Identifying public problems
• Drawing connections between democratic concepts and
principles and one’s own life experience
• Critical thinking – Do you have a B.S. Detector?

15. Civic Experience
Civic participatory skills encompass knowing how to cope in
groups and organizational settings, interface with elected
officials and community representatives, communicate
perspectives and arguments, and plan strategically for civic
change. What have you done?
• Volunteering
• Active listening, Engaging in dialogue with those who hold different
perspectives
• Communicating through public speaking, letter writing, petitioning,
canvassing, lobbying, protesting
• Managing, organizing, participating in groups
• Building consensus and forging coalitions
• Utilizing electoral processes – helping someone run
• Utilizing non-electoral means to voice opinion (protest, petitioning,
surveying, letter writing, boycotting, and so on)
• Planning and running meetings
• Organizing and demonstrating
• Running for public office

16. State of Civic Engagement

21. "This creative power is a striving power; this creative
power can be seen in different views, in the power of
evolution, in the power of life, in the power which
accomplishes the goal of an ideal completion to
overcome the difficulties of life." Alfred Adler - "The
General System of Individual Psychology," an
unpublished manuscript in the AAISF/ATP Archives.)

22. 1. Increase youth voter registration
2. Increase youth volunteerism
3. Expose youth to Fight For 15
4. Get people to care about Dyett Campaign
5. Get people to donate $5 to the Red Cross
6. Make case that someone from Adler should
run for Governor in 2018

23. • 20 minutes to brainstorm (additive, +)
• Choose a scribe
• What is your message?
• How to get message out, attended to?
• Report back

25. Shameless Plug

26. www.tresser.com
www.tifreports.com
www.civiclab.us
tom@civiclab.us