Courage, Curiosity, Generosity: At DA, Students Build Foundation for Lifelong Civil Discourse
Story By Dylan Howlett | Photos by Kate Auger
10-minute read
On this auspicious day in his largely carefree existence, Arnie learns that you can get eaten alive for being your full self. It is a rather chilling, and literal, revelation for Arnie. He is a doughnut.
The title character in Laurie Keller’s Arnie the Doughnut reaches this epiphany after Mr. Bing, a faithful customer at the geographically named Downtown Bakery, absconds with Arnie one fateful morning. Mr. Bing raises Arnie to his mouth and stops only when he hears a shout from his fingertips. “What are you doing?!” Arnie yells. Mr. Bing shrugs. He intends to eat Arnie, of course. “Well … because … you’re a doughnut,” Mr. Bing says. “That’s what doughnuts are for. To eat.”
After some humanizing pleas from Arnie, the unexpected duo sets out to reach an armistice. Surely, Arnie says, I can be useful for something other than your breakfast. The forlorn doughnut and now-ravished Mr. Bing exchange a flurry of ideas — ballroom dance partner, personal fitness trainer, bodyguard — but can’t reach a consensus. “I’m sorry, Arnie,” Mr. Bing says. “But it’s clear that we can’t agree on anything …”
The pastry-focused discord inspires burbling laughter from every reach of Brumley Performing Arts Building, where Durham Academy Lower Schoolers have gathered on a Friday morning as an electorate in the inaugural Preschool/Lower School book election. The race features three candidates, or titles, whose qualifications come in the form of YouTube readings at the Friday assembly. Arnie the Doughnut has company on the ballot in David Ezra Stein’s Interrupting Chicken, which tells the tale of an overeager little red chicken who preemptively finishes all of her father’s bedtime stories, and Aaron Reynolds’s Creepy Pair of Underwear! — a rollicking account of a stubbornly ghoulish undergarment.
The Preschoolers and Lower Schoolers participated in a full campaign cycle — with election day held, fittingly, on Tuesday, Nov. 5 — as an outgrowth of DA’s Design for Election Task Force, which devised intentional, schoolwide and student-centered programming ahead of this fall’s presidential election. The task force approached their work with two guiding questions: How do we want our students to feel before, during and after the election? What do we want them to know? They also leaned on “Design for Election Season” resources from Leadership+Design, a nonprofit education collaborative from which DA faculty had pulled materials during the 2020 election.
It was a timely catalyst for continuing and strengthening DA’s work in civil discourse — and the notion of equipping students with the necessary skills to hold tough conversations with abiding respect, humility and curiosity.
“It’s done with a baseline understanding that we are in community together, we care about each other, we value each other and that this is about learning from — and with — one another, not about winning an argument or being able to put you in a box,” said Kristen Klein, associate head of school.
The renewed focus was born from a multi-year trend that the DA Leadership Team observed in data from senior exit interviews with Head of School Michael Ulku-Steiner and end-of-year family surveys. A measurable percentage of students and survey respondents — a little less than 10% — said they either felt the need to self-censor in conversations on campus or expressed concern that classmates with more conservative beliefs felt compelled to self-censor. That percentage has dipped over the last few years, Klein said, as civil discourse efforts have ramped up in earnest across divisions. The Leadership Team plucked three salient characteristics from the DA Portrait of a Graduate — courage, curiosity and generosity — to inform the hard, important work of empowering students to find comfort in the discomfort of disagreement. The task force has also identified an organization, Essential Partners, that works with other local independent schools to continue facilitating dialogue skills for students.
“Looking at our Strategic Vision and preparation for life, this is something that we’re seeing going wrong in huge ways in our culture,” said Klein, who also served on the election task force. “We can no longer assume that students are sort of just picking up these skills as they go through school. One of my reasons for really leaning into this work is to provide an environment in every classroom where kids are exposed to a multiplicity of ideas and perspectives and are really given rich opportunities to debate, to discuss, to try on ideas, to change their minds because they hear somebody else’s perspective or they get new data.”
Especially when, say, an anthropomorphic doughnut advocates for a greater purpose in life. Welcome to civil discourse at Durham Academy.
“The non-negotiables for me are, one, that students have spaces not just in their classrooms, but also in other places to engage in conversation with curiosity, intellectual humility and resilience. Those, for me, are really important values. I think in our current climate, there is often a desire to put people in buckets. Students developmentally are supposed to try on ideas. They may have, over the course of a four-year landscape, wildly divergent views at the beginning and at the end of that time — as they should. And that’s part of the process of education. The process of education is to make us uncomfortable, to problematize our assumptions. I think that the danger — and sort of where our society has swung — is it becomes too easy for kids to feel like they need to have a ‘hot take’ — and that once they have that hot take, they can’t move from it. They become associated with a particular take or issue. And that is actually antithetical and preventative to the process of education.”
Kristen Klein
Associate Head of School
Preschool and Lower School: Book Election
The work started with DA’s youngest learners.
After watching the book readings — Lower Schoolers in the assembly, and Preschoolers in their classrooms — students held dedicated “conversation roundups” in their classrooms to discuss the merits of each book and to encourage respectful listening. Fourth graders attended lessons with Dr. Michelle Rosen, the Preschool and Lower School librarian and a member of the election task force, to learn more about effective campaign signs and create posters for their preferred book title. Students in pre-kindergarten through second grade viewed the signs before the elections, and third graders evaluated each poster — with clipboards in hand — for overall efficacy and persuasion.
The goals of the book election, Rosen said, sprung directly from skills that Preschool and Lower School faculty hope to nurture in their students by the time they matriculate to the Middle School. “They need to understand that people have different opinions,” Rosen said. “We want them to think more broadly.” They had the opportunity to do exactly that throughout the book campaign. They formed thoughtful opinions and explained those opinions. The skills aren’t dissimilar from the ones that are already baked into the library and information sciences curriculum, as well as the new literacy curriculum that debuted this fall in the Preschool and Lower School.
There’s also room for more dedicated outreach to young minds. An Innovation Journey Fund (IJF) grant secured by a trio of DA faculty members — including Rosen; Crawford Leavoy, director of DA Speech & Debate; and Michele Gutierrez, Lower School Technology, Engineering and Design (TED) teacher and division technology coordinator — aims to bring more civil discourse-related work to the Lower School. Leavoy and Rosen led debate seminars with Lower Schoolers during the 2023–2024 school year, and Gutierrez is a central part of their efforts to investigate how other schools do similar work with young learners.
But civil discourse also has its nonnegotiables. “We’re going to be kind to our classmates, and we’re going to listen to our classmates,” Lower School Director Carolyn Ronco said at the conclusion of the introductory assembly. Throughout the campaign, students considered changing their position, and they understood the value of voting — and that each voter has the right to decide whether or not to share their choice. Students also agreed to accept the result. “Whether we win or lose,” said Ronco, who served on the election task force, “we’re a kind citizen and a kind classmate.”
As Ronco pointed to the screen behind her, each student recited the pair of projected phrases.
My voice matters.
My vote makes a difference.
““We want every member of our community to feel like they matter, that they are loved and they are cared for. That’s our DEE [Diversity, Equity and Engagement] work. And our DEE work extends to diversity of belief. That’s a place where it is increasingly important for us to be clear that our school values and stances come from our mission, not from a particular political ideology, a political academic mindset or bent — and that those values are what define the interactions that we’re going to have with each other.”
Kristen Klein
Associate Head of School
Middle School: Eighth Grade Civics & Middle School Debate Elective
There are times, Austin Muraille knows well, when civil discourse requires the time and space to say what’s in your heart. The eighth grade civics teacher did exactly that at a recent session of the Eighth Grade Town Hall, the Congress-like structure that Muraille and the eighth grade team established at the start of the 2023–2024 school year. Eighth graders serve as representatives in the House, where they can propose “bills” related to their day-to-day experiences. They are subject to passage in the Senate, where eighth grade teachers have the ability to vote down any legislation that comes their way. Middle School Director Jon Meredith serves as president and wields the power to both approve and veto a bill. During a six-week period this fall, however, the eighth graders didn’t propose any bills. So their teachers, or senators, got creative.
Muraille and fellow Middle School civics teacher Karen Ruberg decided to allow one-minute speeches from any student. One by one they rose to deliver their remarks in Horton Hall, where their classmates sat with rapt attention. “We need to be nicer to each other,” one student said. “We need to interact with people we might not normally interact with.” Another student noted in their remarks that eighth graders were intentional about practicing kindness with their teachers. “But if we tried that with each other?” they asked. A third student said there’s a difference between clapping with genuine appreciation and clapping in a peer’s face with performative, sometimes mocking, flair. “Let’s be nice about that,” they said.
“I think it teaches them, in the formal structure of it, to do more than just yell and complain and groan about it,” said Muraille of the town hall, which he proposed, in part, to help students feel heard by their teachers. “I think it allows them to actually try and find rational arguments, how to deliver them calmly — and for us to do that as adults as well.”
The skills required to practice calm rationale neatly reside in the Middle School social studies curriculum. Crafting arguments with a claim, gathering evidence to support the assertion and articulating reasoning to tie it all together is the charge of every social studies teacher and student. “Your discourse cannot be civil if you’re not grounded in evidence and if you’re just going off of what you feel,” Muraille said.
Then there are the softer, more implicit skills that become hallmarks of lifelong learners. Listening with the best of intentions. Allowing yourself to be uncomfortable. Admitting when you’re uncertain. “I’ve often told my kids that the three bravest words you can say in a conversation are, ‘I don’t know,’” Muraille said. “And ideally, we follow that up with: ‘But I’m going to look into it.’”
In October, Muraille and Candice McCray, the Middle School’s dean of student life, distributed — as part of their work with the election task force — an anonymous question form for Middle Schoolers and faculty members to pose curiosities about the election, civic duties and political issues related to the campaign. They selected questions that were fact-based and process-focused. Do you need a voter ID to vote? How does the electoral college work? Their responses, which they shared during morning announcements, were vetted by representatives of the election task force and the social studies department.
Muraille and Ruberg also decided that civil discourse can’t merely be taught. It must be done. Eighth grade civics classes traditionally deliver current events presentations; last year’s were related to global issues. But Muraille and Ruberg tasked their students this fall with picking an election-related topic and sharing their findings with their civics class in a 5- or 10-minute presentation. The topics ranged from a deep dive on gubernatorial candidates to an analysis of the candidates’ social media strategy and the impact of influencers on elections over time.
“I think it’s inherent in everything now. Every single kid needs the tools to be able to engage in disagreement and discourse that’s difficult.”
Rachel Mauchline
Assistant Director of Speech & Debate, Middle School Speech & Debate Teacher
That same process-based analysis appeared in Rachel Mauchline’s Middle School Speech and Debate elective. Students examined six presidential debates across the last 64 years of American politics — including the seminal 1960 debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Mauchline, who also serves as the assistant director of DA Speech & Debate, posed guided questions for each debate clip. What is the role of the moderator? Should there have been a live audience? How does the direct and indirect questioning affect a voter’s perception of the candidates? The framing allowed students to judge each candidate on the merits of their arguments. Mauchline said it was one of her favorite lessons in her teaching career.
“They learn that they have a voice, whether it’s from participating in debate or being advocates in their own community,” Mauchline said of her elective. “It’s the reason that we talk about issues that matter to them. My speech at the start of the year is, ‘This is a safe space. At any point, you’re welcome to leave. It never offends anyone. Whatever you need to do is fine.’” Including, and especially, engaging in lighthearted topics. Several weeks ago, a fierce 20-minute debate erupted over whether cereal should be classified as a soup. (The prevailing opinion: Cereal is indeed a soup.)
Middle Schoolers also had the chance to simulate the inner-workings of the electoral college. In a dice game widely played across social studies classes, students squared off with a partner to determine which “candidate” could win enough states to capture the requisite 270 votes for an electoral college victory. In Virginia Hall’s fifth grade class, students delighted in the wild and unexpected swings of state-by-state results. One competitor looked sullen after absorbing a lopsided defeat not too dissimilar from Ronald Reagan’s 1984 rout of Walter Mondale. Several other students appeared amazed that their simulation produced a popular vote winner who lost the electoral college. They hollered and cheered and gasped past the chime of the bell for the end of D period. They couldn’t run out the door, however, without first practicing humility.
“Are we congratulating each other?” Hall asked with an arched eyebrow. A flurry of arms extended outward to grasp palms. “Good game,” the students told each other. “Good game.”
“Once they’re done with high school, there is no one there to kind of shield them from opinions that they don’t necessarily agree with or don’t want to consider. I don’t want the first time they’re experiencing that to be without a middle school teacher there to really help them process through that moment. I want them to build that resilience, that confidence, with those moments.”
Austin Muraille
Middle School Social Studies Teacher, Eighth Grade Team Leader
Upper School: Faculty Professional Development & Student-Led Presentations
Equipping students with the tools of civil discourse starts with equipping faculty. In the spring of 2024, Lindy Frasher — the associate director of the Upper School for student life who chaired the DA Design for Election task force — and Upper School Director Lanis Wilson presented to Upper School faculty on the psychology of bias. The presentation sought to start a conversation around constructive dialogue; to help faculty facilitate difficult conversations; to build more empathy into such conversations; and to recognize the natural cognitive processes that inform bias.
“The roots of bias are not always hate,” said Frasher, who also serves as an Upper School psychology teacher. “In fact, most of the time, it’s not. It’s really a function of how your brain actually works. And so if we know that this is how our brian actually works, it doesn’t excuse biased thought or prejudice — in fact, once you know it, now you’ve got to go, ‘Well, that’s the way I think. I’ve gotta work to counteract that.’”
This humble, thoughtful approach echoed much of the sentiment from Dr. John Rose, the associate director of Duke University’s Civil Discourse Project who spoke with Upper School faculty and staff in October. Rose’s most popular course at the university, How To Think In An Age of Political Polarization, endeavors to help undergraduates navigate charged conversations in a fraught political climate. “The students didn’t do this,” Rose told his Upper School audience. “It’s not their fault. But it’s the world they find themselves in.”
He tasks students with a series of “virtues” that he upholds in his classroom. Be less self-righteous. Don’t embarrass or humiliate. Learn how to disagree better. Multiple sets of friends at Duke have taken the course, Rose said, to mend politics-induced fissures in their relationships. It’s the same safety, and reassurance, that Frasher hopes for Upper Schoolers at DA. “I think they need to know that they’ll be taken care of,” Frasher said of DA students, “and that they won’t be canceled or ostracized or vilified.”
There’s also always the opportunity to learn from peers. A pair of student-led Upper School assemblies this fall provided voter education — including registration deadlines and an overview of the North Carolina ballot — and a crash course in Elections 101, during which students from the U.S. Government and Politics class debunked common election-related myths (There is only one way and one day to vote) and a preview of how official results get reported on election night. The gatherings harkened back to this year’s Upper School Convocation in August, when Wilson shared three community-wide goals for the school year that he borrowed from the list of attributes within DA’s Portrait of a Graduate: Kindness. Joy. Generosity. It’s all part of being a lifelong learner.
“They need to be less certain,” Frasher said. “They need to feel like it’s OK to make a mistake. They need to be OK not knowing. It’s curiosity, but it’s also humility. That’s part of it: being able to either not know or to be willing to shift perspective or completely change your mind.”
“One of my life philosophies is to be more curious than certain. What I love about that is that it combines curiosity with what I would define as intellectual humility — that if each of us leans into discourse with the genuine belief that ‘I could be wrong about this,’ that mindset will shift the ways that we interact with one another and the ways that our students are able to learn.”
Kristen Klein
Associate Head of School
… But Who Won the Preschool and Lower School Book Election?!?!
Even ravenous doughnut enthusiasts can find the humility to change their mind, and the curiosity to see new possibilities.
Mr. Bing sees no choice but to have Arnie leave his home. They’ve both arrived at the somber realization that Arnie serves no other utility. “I guess doughnuts really are only good for eating, aren’t they?” Arnie says. He walks out of Mr. Bing’s front door and trundles through the neighborhood. He passes a sign that reads “No Dogs Allowed.”
Mr. Bing watches from his window. His heart leaps. Mr. Bing has always wanted a dog, but the rules of the neighborhood have prevented him from doing so. Yet there’s no local statute that precludes the ownership of doughnuts. “Arnie,” Mr. Bing says. “Will you be my doughnut dog?” And so it was that a man and his breakfast became best friends, with a dose of courage and generosity, seeing and hearing each other to harp less on what was and yearn more for what could be.
The Preschoolers and Lower Schoolers of Durham Academy agreed. Arnie the Doughnut won the book election by 18 votes.
“We talk all the time about ‘lifelong learner.’ I think often what that means in 2024 is, ‘Well, there are going to be new things to learn and I want to always be able to learn them.’ For me, coming out of a liberal arts tradition, that idea of lifelong learner is really about, ‘I could legitimately be wrong about every single thing I think, and I want to learn more as a true seeker so that I can discover where my own blindspots are, and where are things that I’ve misunderstood along the way.’”
Kristen Klein
Associate Head of School
2024 DA Design for Election Task Force
Lindy Frasher, Task Force Chair, Associate Director of the Upper School for Student Life
Christian Hairston-Randleman, Director of Student Support & Wellness
Kristen Klein, Associate Head of School
Candice McCray, Middle School Dean of Student Life
Jason Mundy, Director of Diversity, Equity and Engagement
Austin Muraille, Middle School Social Studies Teacher
Dr. Rob Policelli, Assistant Upper School Director for Academic Affairs
Carolyn Ronco, Lower School Director
Dr. Michelle Rosen, Preschool and Lower School Librarian