In my last blog post, I wrote about the importance of media literacy and the need to help students feel empowered in a world that rarely slows down. In a time when everything is loud and when headlines, opinions and algorithms compete for attention, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, confused and burnt out.
One of the most important roles I play as an educator is helping students quiet that noise, not by tuning out, but by tuning in. Teaching students how to “read the room,” to tune into themselves, to one another and to the deeper questions beneath the surface creates space for curiosity, openness and authentic learning.
In a world that can feel fragmented and disorienting, the classroom is built around one foundational belief: every person who walks into that space carries a story. Some of those stories are shared; many are not. And yet, all of them matter. Everyone has their own journey. It’s up to us, as educators and classmates, to recognize that. To listen before we assume. To create space where each student’s story can shape the learning, not be buried beneath it. This is how we begin: not just as individuals, but as a team preparing to study the world and its complexity together.
Foundations First: Building the Human Infrastructure
Each year, my teaching partner, Gina Aubin and I, begin our World Studies course with a unit titled Understanding the Team: Foundations of Leadership and Global Cooperation. This isn’t just a warm-up or icebreaker, but a deeply intentional part of our curriculum. It is a foundation for everything that follows.
Rather than jumping straight into historical content, we focus on building the habits of communication, trust and shared purpose that make a strong team. Students engage in meaningful conversations, explore modern virtues and reflect on what it means to be part of a community capable of navigating complexity together.
The Virtue Framework: Practicing Who We Want to Be
To support this work, we introduce students to the 10 Virtues for the Modern Age, which include resilience, empathy, patience, sacrifice, politeness, humor, self-awareness, forgiveness, hope and confidence. These aren’t abstract ideals. They are lived tools for civic cooperation.
Students select, analyze and reflect on these virtues, using them to shape group norms and guide personal growth. For example, during a recent team simulation, one student demonstrated self- awareness by acknowledging a misstep in negotiation and adjusting their tone to rebuild trust. They understood that tone matters. Another leaned on humor to diffuse tension after a difficult class discussion. They grasped the importance that levity has with carrying a conversation forward. Humor is an underrated but vital skill in both leadership and diplomacy.
These moments matter. They’re not side effects of learning; they are evidence of it. We emphasize that these virtues aren’t separate from the historical and societal patterns we explore, they shape those patterns. Without them, collaboration, diplomacy and critical thinking fall apart.
The Syllabus as Structure: Teaching Civic Literacy Through Design
Our course structure reinforces these principles. World Studies blends English/Language Arts and Social Studies through interdisciplinary units that explore the evolution of human rights, global power dynamics and diplomacy. Each unit connects historical and literary analysis to human rights themes, asking students to think critically and empathetically:
● How do totalitarian regimes rise to power?
● What are the limits of international diplomacy?
● How do narratives of resistance and leadership shape global society?
From our Diplomacy Simulation kickoff featuring Tim Horgan and Maheen Tariq of the World Affairs Council of New Hampshire, centered on the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956, to one-pagers on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, student-run newsletters, guest speakers, Socratic Seminars and investigative journalism, every assessment is designed to help students interpret, analyze and engage with the world around them.
Even our classroom systems that include collaborative structures, continuous feedback and consistent modeling of adaptability and self-reflection, reinforce the values of growth, accountability, and critical thinking. These systems are intentionally designed to reflect and model the same dynamics found in the broader world, allowing our classroom to serve as a microcosm of the global society we study.
Human Before Content, Practice Before Performance
We believe students can’t fully understand genocide, decolonization, proxy wars, global economics, or Cold War interventions without first building emotional and ethical grounding. They need to understand one another and themselves, before they can truly understand the world.
This is why our course begins with community and carries that thread through every unit, from exploring the effects of globalization to questioning the future of human rights enforcement. When students are grounded in virtue, they’re more equipped to wrestle with the real forces that shape society, with patience in the face of ambiguity, with forgiveness when mistakes happen, and with confidence when they’re called to lead.
The Civic Classroom: An Invitation
If we want our students to become leaders, not just learners, we have to build more than a curriculum. We have to build a culture. Whether you’re an educator, policymaker, parent, or global citizen, consider the power of beginning not with what students must know, but with who they are becoming and how they might one day shape the future.
What would change if every classroom began with questions of character, empathy and clarity? Story-centered teaching isn’t feel-good pedagogy. It’s necessary preparation for life within society. When students begin to understand each other’s experiences, they’re better equipped to understand the motivations behind resistance movements, global negotiations, or historical turning points. Before we explore how borders get drawn or rights get revoked, we need students to ask: What happens to people when they’re not seen? What does it mean to be heard? What power lies in that?
In the next blog, I’ll share how we take that foundation of trust, story and shared values and put it into motion. Through diplomacy simulations and student-led initiatives, we give students the opportunity to step into complexity, not just study it. In a world full of noise, practicing clarity matters.
By Nick Watson, Social Studies Educator and Board Member, World Affairs Council of New Hampshire
