Cato’s Sphere Education Initiative works with grades 5–12 educators and administrators to provide them with the knowledge, experience, resources, and professional development opportunities to bring difficult conversations on the most pressing issues to the classroom and equip our country’s students to engage in civil dialogue. By bringing facts and reason to the conversation, and through emphasizing viewpoint diversity, Sphere works to rekindle the foundation of civic culture in America.
Sphere: Teaching Civic Culture Together
About Sphere Summit
The Sphere Summit is a full scholarship summer program for grades 5–12 educators and administrators.
The Sphere Summit features presentations by leading policymakers, scholars, and academics, who discuss key public policy issues facing our nation today. The Summit also features professional development workshops conducted by leaders in civic education.
The Sphere Summit aims to restore a spirit of civil, constructive, and respectful discourse and engagement and to return facts, analysis, and research to primacy as the vehicles for discussion and debate.
THE OBJECTIVES OF THE SPHERE SUMMIT INCLUDE:
- Civic Culture: Explore and address the current state of public discourse, partisanship, and tribalism in America.
- Foundations: Discuss shared values essential to a restoration of civic culture.
- Applications: Demonstrate and share tools and approaches for the classroom on current public policy issues from diverse viewpoints. Other topics will include the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law, and freedom of expression.
- Understanding Each Other: Examine political philosophies—progressive, libertarian, and conservative—and engage with leading scholars and educators on how to communicate effectively with, and understand the viewpoints of, audiences with diverse perspectives. Adherents of the various political philosophies will explain the ways in which those philosophies are often misunderstood.
- Policy Discussions: Analyze key policy issues from diverse perspectives with an emphasis on shared values and common objectives, guided by scholars from leading public policy organizations and academic institutions.
For information and to learn more about Sphere, please contact Allan Carey, director of Sphere Education Initiatives, at acarey@cato.org.