Over the past few years, the American Political Science Association and its members have renewed their commitment to high school civic education. In 2022, APSA’s Council approved the formation of the Committee on Civic Education, charged with exploring how political scientists can play a more active role in high school civic education and engagement. With APSA hosting three high school students participating in Montgomery County Public Schools’ Summer Rise Program, APSA Educate sat down with the students to discuss their experience with civic engagement at the high school level.
Amelia Goettsch is a rising-senior at Poolesville High School in Maryland. Below, read her interview discussing her experience with civic education and civic engagement at the high school level.
I am Amelia Goettsch and I am a rising-senior at Poolesville High School in Maryland. At Poolesville High School, I am a part of the humanities magnet program where I am supported as I study my interests in political science, writing, editing, and history. I participate in clubs like Model UN and Peace Makers and Problem Solvers with the Marshall Legacy Institute. I am also a three sport athlete where I do soccer, swimming, and track each season. Some of my favorite classes that I’ve taken are AP American History and AP Government.
What does civic engagement mean to you?
Civic engagement is involving oneself in a community, whether as small as a classroom or as big as your country. Civic engagement is an essential part of a successful community. It leads to the improvement of communities from within as it involves the people a part of it to improve issues that the community itself believes is important. Whether it be through activism, volunteering, education, and many other means, civic engagement is crucial to promoting democracy and positively affecting communities getting individuals involved in the world around them.
How did you become interested in civic engagement?
The first time I ever recognized myself getting involved and working to positively improve a community that was important to me, was through involvement in my neighborhood swim team. As I was growing up, my neighborhood swim team meant everything to me, but most of the time I was simply a participant. That changed when I got the opportunity to work as a “Little Kingfish” coach, a volunteering opportunity for middle schoolers to help teach kids who couldn’t swim well enough to make the team. As I volunteered, I finally understood the impact of individuals working to help a community. I watched as the kids I taught finally became strong enough swimmers to make the team. It felt so rewarding knowing that not only was I helping little kids achieve their goals but I was also helping my team. Through volunteering, involving others, or simply being a positive influence, throughout that summer and the summers after that, I began looking for any way to involve myself and help my team. This experience helped build the foundation for future interest in civic engagement. This opened the door for me to participate in civic engagement at higher levels, such as helping to organize school walkouts, volunteering for people in need, and spreading news about issues I believe in through social media. Now I am excited for any opportunity to improve the world around me and fight for ideas I believe in.
What have you been taught about civic engagement or political science?
My experiences of learning about civic engagement versus political science have been very different from one another. Most of what I have learned about civic engagement has been through the influence of other community members on myself and through personal experience. Civic engagement is something that I have learned about in school. However, I have learned the most when I am able to get first hand experience. Because how a person involves themselves in civic engagement is very nuanced and specific to each community based on their goals, it wasn’t something I was able to understand to the same extent in school that I was able to through gaining experience in the communities I was a part of. I learned that looking to others who contribute to civic engagement in the community and how they would effectively reach their goals was a way I could learn about civic engagement. It is essential to communities and often the best way you can achieve your goals is by involving as much of the community you can. I’ve learned that civic engagement can take so many forms. It can be blatant, such as participating in a protest or volunteering, and it can also be less obvious yet still incredibly impactful, such as when an adult I looked up to encouraged me to participate in a cheer for my swim team. Civic engagement is often the backbone of community development and making sure everyone in the community is taken care of and represented.
My interest in political science and experience in learning about it has stemmed from my history classes. Political science is something that has been developed overtime and can be studied by looking at past events. It is really interesting to learn about the world around you and how we got to the place that we are by looking at past political issues. When I look at contemporary political issues, it’s very interesting to look at them in comparison to history and through the perspective of how this may appear looking back on it. I have learned that political science is an essential aspect for being aware of the world around us, by being conscious of our government, the needs of the people around us, and of conflict.
How do you hope to use what you have learned in the future?
Learning about civic engagement and political science has currently led me to activism and volunteer work. I hope through what I have learned so far I am able to continue that and one day be able to participate in civic engagement at a larger scale than I am able to now. I hope that I will be able to engage with and help as many people as I can in the future. Through continued education in college within political science, I want to learn more about the field and to learn about the best ways that we as a society can work to deal with them. Politics and government is one of the most impactful ways to have an effect on society. I believe that it is not just the government’s role to regulate society, but to improve the lives of its citizens to the greatest extent. One of my long term goals is to involve myself in the government and to make the greatest impact that I can on the issues I believe in. I want to continue to learn from others, continue volunteer work, and educate myself about political science and civic engagement.
What is one topic you’re interested in learning related to political science?
I am very interested in the topic of feminism. Although I have spent much time learning and educating myself about it, I have a strong desire to keep learning as the socio-political issue has so much depth to it. There are many different aspects of feminism and the role of gender in politics and society that I have not yet gotten the opportunity to explore. I am particularly interested in women’s role in education. The rising number of women going into higher education and now outnumbering men in college enrollment is a recent phenomenon. However, this is having unexpected effects, such as women being evaluated harsher by some colleges in order to create a gender balanced class. I think this is a topic that I would love to research and learn more about. I also want to continue to learn about pressing issues such as reproductive rights and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. It would be incredibly important to learn about the effects that this overturning has had on American women and how abortion has affected the topic of healthcare. I want to continue to learn about the history of feminism and how it has evolved over the centuries. I believe that in order to understand contemporary issues there is value in looking to history in order to understand the contemporary issues that American women are currently facing.
