Organization holds events like tonight's education debate ‘to get people speaking across the political divide’
A nationwide organization that’s trying to heal America’s political polarization is sponsoring a virtual debate tonight about the quality of education in Alaska. The organization is called Braver Angels, and it’s holding online events around the country in an effort to get conservatives and progressives to talk with each other – instead of talking at each other.
Braver Angels was established by a bipartisan group after the hyperpartisan 2016 election. The organization’s name comes from President Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, when he called upon Americans to summon their “better angels” and stop the march to what became known as the Civil War. Now, Braver Angels asks us just to talk with each other.
“I think they concluded it really does take bravery to speak out right now,” says Betsy Baker, the state liaison for Braver Angels in Alaska.
“I think a lot of people are just really scared to say anything to someone who they might not agree with,” she said, “and it does take some courage to speak up and say ‘Can we talk about that?’ ”
Baker is an Anchorage-based consultant on Arctic law and policy for the Washington, D.C.-based Wilson Center. And she volunteered for Alaska’s Braver Angels group during the bitterly contested 2020 election, when it seemed the partisan divide between Republicans and Democrats had grown so wide that politicians on both sides couldn’t even talk about their differences.
“The basic idea of the organization is to get people speaking across the political divide – red, blue, and anything in between or beyond – and to do it respectfully,” she said in an interview Monday. “Sort of re-creating, rebuilding civil discourse about our democracy.”
Baker hopes some of that civil discourse will happen during tonight’s virtual debate that’ll feature two Fairbanks-area members of a panel that’ll consider whether “public schools in Alaska are focused too much on teaching students what to think, and not enough on teaching how to think.”
The panelists will include Fairbanks North Star Borough School District board member Tim Doran and state Representative Mike Prax, of North Pole. Also, Dawn Cogan, who works with a homeschooling program run by the Galena School District, and Tennessee Judkins, the director of Inupiaq Education for the North Slope Borough School District.
“We wanted to look more broadly at what we think is a wonderfully unique education landscape in the state,” she said. “And just get the different perspectives that are represented on the panel, from homeschooling to sort of legislative concerns to school board member to indigenous cultures and different Alaska Native approaches.”
And because Braver Angels tries to promote dialogue, Baker says the debate organizers also will encourage everyone who’s logged-on to the Zoom virtual meeting to offer their thoughts about Alaska’s educational system.
The virtual meeting will be held 6:30 to 8:15 p.m. Anyone interested in participating may register by clicking here, and can find out more about the organization by going to braverangels.org.
