“Let's Talk About It: Practicing Civil Discourse with Young Children and Families” at Kidzu Children’s Museum

In partnership with the UNC Program for Public Discourse, the East Chapel Hill High School Civil Discourse project, the Paidaie Center, and Dr. Traci Baxley of Socialjusticeparenting.com and through support from NC Humanities, Kidzu Children’s Museum has embarked on an exciting new project titled, “Let's Talk About It: Practicing Civil Discourse with Young Children and Families.” Inspired by conversations overheard at Kidzu between children and their caregivers about the varying perspectives on mask wearing and immunization, this project includes hosting free family workshop sessions at the museum surrounding age-appropriate approaches to fostering civil discourse. Working with experts in the field, these facilitated sessions will provide children and their families tools with how to tackle and discuss difficult topics, with the goal of fostering more democratic and productive conversations across generations. Kidzu kicked off this project with an interactive community listening session to determine what topics and themes families deem the most difficult and uncomfortable to talk about. Ultimately, this project will result in a physical and virtual exhibit, and the creation of a civil discourse toolkit to serve as a resource for other museums and K-12 educators across the state to implement civil discourse learning in formal and informal education settings.

Caption for photos: Families interact with various activities and facilitators from the UNC Program for Public Discourse and students from East Chapel Hill High School at Kidzu’s listening session, intended to help staff understand what topics families in the community find the most difficult and uncomfortable to discuss.