Choices

KIDS Consortium was honored to be part of a three-year initiative with the Choices Program at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies and a team from Indiana. This collaboration focused on the integration of civic and international education in the two states and serves as a model nationally for others who wish to do the same. KIDS Consortium was particularly interested in exploring the connections between international education and service-learning.

During the project period, 2003 to 2007, KIDS Consortium collaborated with Brown University to provide professional development experiences for Maine educators on the Choices curriculum and how to facilitate deliberations with students about controversial issues. State-wide Capitol Forums were held in 2005 and 2006, through which high school students studied and deliberated on the U.S. role in international affairs in their classrooms and then convened for a day in Augusta to share their learning with each other and interact with state policy-makers.

In May 2007, a local Forum was held at Casco Bay High School in Portland, Maine as a culminating activity for a year-long study of human rights and genocide around the globe. The Forum provided an opportunity for students to consider various policy responses to genocide and to hear from refugees living in Maine who experienced human rights abuses.

In addition, the students at Casco Bay High School partnered with The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland to produce in-depth written histories of refugees living in the community, along with photographs of these remarkable people. Their work was shared with the Portland community at the Salt Institute art gallery.

Learn more about the Choices Program