Could you describe your vision of an ideal America by explaining it to a stranger in 30 minutes? How about in 10 minutes — or even five?
Now, try summarizing it in just two words.
The last was the challenge that students in Chris Sheehan’s high school civics class put to members of their community last week during a free dinner and democracy discussion at Twinfield Union School in Plainfield.
For two hours, about 50 people, ranging in age from teens to octogenarians, partook in pizza and conversation about what values they want America to embrace to become a more perfect union. Each participant was then asked to choose two words that summarized their aspirations for the country and submit them anonymously into a database, along with some basic demographic information such as their age, gender, race, and town and state of residence. Later in the evening, the results were projected on a large screen in a word cloud that represented the collective values of everyone in the room. The larger the word, the more often it was chosen.
The evening’s exercise mirrored a semester-long class project called “The America I Want Is…,” a civics initiative in which the Twinfield students learned how to question — in a nonpartisan and nonjudgmental way — their friends, relatives, neighbors and others about what they want their country to become. In all, the students, ages 15 to 17, interviewed about 500 people, only 112 of whom were from the school.
“Taking this class was one of the best decisions I ever made.” Olive Estrin
The purpose of the project went beyond teaching students how to start conversations with strangers and conduct good interviews. At a time when the fabric of American society looks tattered and threadbare, when our so-called national dialogue often sounds less like a respectful debate than a barroom brawl, these teens went looking for the values that unite, rather than divide, Americans.
“Taking this class was one of the best decisions I ever made,” said Olive Estrin, 16, a junior from Plainfield who helped emcee last week’s democracy discussion.
Earlier this year, Estrin interviewed more than 40 people, including some in an airport while waiting for a flight home from Arizona. There, she spoke to several Mexican immigrants who are now U.S. citizens. One of the words they chose was “identity.” Why?
“All they wanted was to be seen as real Americans,” Estrin said, explaining how the word “identity” sparked a longer conversation. “It’s really a bonding experience talking to people about such a sensitive subject.”
The two words Estrin chose for the America she wants: “diversity” and “acceptance.”
“We live in a society where division is profitable,” said David Adams, president and cofounder of the Linley Foundation, which created “The America I Want Is…” civics initiative. “CNN, MSNBC and Fox all thrive on division. Politicians want division because it gets people riled up.”
Last year, the Linley Foundation, an international philanthropic group headquartered in Northfield, partnered with Twinfield to beta test the new civics curriculum; its developers hope to expand to other Vermont schools in the fall. Their long-term goal — assuming they can find $500,000 in funding to bring it to fruition — is to make the curriculum available nationwide. Doing so would enable students in Vermont to exchange and compare their results with students and communities in other states. The hope, Adams said, is to identify the shared priorities that often get obscured by the usual red-state-versus-blue-state paradigm.
“We have a lot more that unites us than divides us,” said Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas, who attended last week’s democracy discussion. “There are powerful forces out there that are interested in dividing us, because we are easier to control or subvert when we’re all in our own little factions.”
The two words Copeland Hanzas chose that evening: “equality” and “opportunity.”
Sheehan, 48, whom the Linley Foundation chose to pilot the curriculum in Vermont, has been teaching history, civics and criminal justice in Plainfield for 11 years. His own interest in the subject arose before he knew about “The America I Want Is…” initiative.
“About two years ago, I noticed that it was hard to have conversations [in class] about politics — or really anything remotely controversial,” he said. “There seemed to be this tendency for students to just shut down.”
When Sheehan asked his students why, they typically gave the same reply: Regardless of whether the conversation was about guns, abortion, immigration or presidential politics, it invariably devolved into an argument.
“I became really concerned,” he said. “I want students to be able to talk about those things in a healthy way. I don’t think that [arguing] is going to spark a love of being civically active.”
So Sheehan applied, and was awarded, a fellowship from Burlington’s Rowland Foundation that enabled him to spend a year traveling to New York, Kentucky and Denmark to study how other communities boost civic engagement and engage in healthy and productive debates. Last fall, he brought 20 Twinfield students to Denmark, which consistently ranks among the world’s healthiest democracies, to participate in such conversations. Earlier this year, Twinfield hosted 20 Danish students.
Hazel O’Brien, a 17-year-old senior at Twinfield, was among the group that visited Denmark. Part of what appealed to him about Sheehan’s class, he explained, was the opportunity to explore the theoretical basis of other people’s ideologies and values, without getting bogged down in current events.
“I’m definitely guilty of checking out of the daily news cycle,” O’Brien said. “It’s a lot of noise, and it’s stressful, and … whenever I talk to people about it, especially people I disagree with, it doesn’t lead anywhere productive.”
O’Brien’s two words for the America he wants: “egalitarian” and “participatory.”
When Sheehan’s class finally saw the word cloud that represented Twinfield students, many were surprised by some of the most prevalent words, including “self-sufficient.” It sparked a long conversation about the intention behind the word: Did “self-sufficient” suggest that Americans need to be more independent and less reliant on government subsidies? Or did it mean that the nation as a whole needs to rely less on other countries and become more isolationist?
“We never did get an answer to that one,” O’Brien said.
Another common word: “affordable.” Sheehan suggested a few possible explanations: Many of the students who participated were starting to plan for college and realizing how much it will cost them and their families. Others had just gotten their driver’s licenses and were discovering how much it costs to fill up a gas tank.
“We know it’s tough out there for kids,” Sheehan added. “But I don’t think I realized that it was that much on their minds.”
Much of the impetus behind “The America I Want Is…” came from people at the Linley Foundation who have seen democracies fail firsthand.
Adams, 81, the group’s cofounder, was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as a descendant of British settlers to South America in the mid-19th century. He grew up in Brazil until age 12, when his parents sent him to Europe for his formal education. For a year, he studied in Portugal during the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar. Adams immigrated to the U.S. in 1967 and is a naturalized citizen. His wife, Linley Foundation cofounder Maria Lucia Ferreira, was born in Rio de Janeiro and lived for years under Brazil’s military dictatorship.
Others involved in the civics initiative never experienced authoritarian rule but still sense the urgency of its mission.
“Democracy is threatened, so this is a very timely conversation,” said Peter Mallary of Bradford, who serves on the nonprofit’s board of directors. Mallary, 72, was involved in shaping public policy for more than 35 years as a state legislator, journalist and adviser to two Vermont governors.
“I’m very interested in students and how their ideas form,” added Mallary, the third generation in his family to serve in the legislature. “I grew up in a political family, where politics were the stuff of conversation. But I don’t sense that’s true in a lot of places and for a lot of families.”
Mallary’s two words for the America he wants: “fairness” and “connections.”
Later in the evening, the participants shared some of their reasons for being there.
“I was attracted to talking about what we are for, versus what we are against,” a white-haired retiree in his seventies said.
Another man at his table was drawn to the idea that Americans could learn to “deal constructively with conflict — not run away from it but look it in the eye.”
Billi Schloss, a 79-year-old woman from Waitsfield, said she had moved to the U.S. more than 40 years ago from Brazil.
“We have lived through the military dictatorship,” she said, noting that some of her friends had been disappeared by the government. “People here don’t know. You always think it’s not going to happen to you. But now…” she added, trailing off.
When the community’s word cloud was finally revealed at the end of the evening, the room let out a collective gasp. Some of the more commonly chosen words included “safe,” “equal” and “unity.” The single most common one: “respect.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “A More Perfect Union | A new high school civics program tries to identify the values that unite, rather than divide, Americans”
Related Stories
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2025.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!