Trivia night at a museum. Game night at a library. Cocktails and crafts at a historic site. A concert in a public garden.

These may not look like civic programs, but they can open the door to civic institutions for people who might not otherwise see a place for themselves inside.

I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about children and families. I believe deeply that we need to start civic learning early, give families opportunities to learn together, and build habits of curiosity and engagement that can last a lifetime.

But civic learning cannot end when childhood does. To make civic learning truly lifelong, people need lifelong relationships with the institutions that provide it.

For children, civic institutions offer clear on-ramps. Schools organize field trips. Teachers introduce students to museums and historic sites. Family programs give parents, grandparents, and children a reason to visit and learn together.

As young people get older, however, those built-in invitations become less frequent. Eventually, they leave school altogether. Adults without children may have fewer natural reasons to walk through the doors of a museum or historic site. If visiting civic institutions is not already a personal interest or habit, there may be nothing prompting them to begin.

When those built-in invitations fall away, we need to create new ones.

Young adults and adults without children are not necessarily uninterested in history, ideas, or civic life. The question is how to create invitations that fit this stage of life, and that is where we can get creative.

An 18-year-old may not choose to spend Friday night at a history museum to see an exhibit, but he might come for a game night with friends. A 24-year-old may not sign up for a lecture, but she might show up for crafts or trivia.

Civic institutions have experimented with experiences like these for years: trivia nights, cocktail hours, after-hours events, concerts, crafts, and games. We have dabbled in them at the National Constitution Center, too. But too often, programs like these remain at the edges of our work rather than becoming a sustained strategy for reaching audiences we otherwise struggle to engage.

Part of the reason is that they can look more social than educational. That can make them seem peripheral to the mission, or less worthy of sustained philanthropic investment than exhibits, school programs, scholarship, and other more traditional forms of civic learning.

I want to challenge that assumption.

Consider the size of the audience we are talking about. Tens of millions of young adults and adults without children are moving through stages of life in which the built-in invitations to civic institutions are fewer. Reaching them more intentionally could significantly expand who civic institutions meaningfully engage.

And the case for creating these new invitations extends beyond civic learning. Americans are spending less time together. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey, the share of Americans age 15 and older who spent time socializing and communicating as a primary activity on an average day fell from 38% in 2014 to 30% in 2024. The average time spent on those activities also fell, from 43 minutes to 35 minutes.

Civic institutions have something valuable to offer in response: spaces built for public purpose where people can gather, spend time together, and connect face to face.

Research from the American Alliance of Museums suggests that making greater use of those spaces for social experiences can also help museums reach less-engaged audiences. In 2025, 43% of casual museum-goers and 45% of sporadic museum-goers said they only visit museums with family or friends, compared with 31% of frequent museum-goers. AAM also found that younger adults are more likely than older adults to want interactive experiences such as creating together and playing games or challenges. And for some less frequent visitors, museums may simply be “off their radar,” rather than places they have decided not to visit.

A social experience can address both needs at once: giving people a place to spend time together while inviting them into a civic institution where they can encounter history, ideas, objects, and questions they might not have sought out on their own.

But we have to get the calibration right. If these experiences are going to reach new audiences, a fun night out cannot feel like an educational program in disguise. The social experience has to be genuine: Come for trivia, the food and wine, or a night out with friends. But while you are here, learn a few things with us.

That learning can be light but intentional. A trivia night can weave questions drawn from the galleries into a broader game. A craft night can introduce a story or object that gives what people are making greater meaning. An after-hours event can pair food and wine with a historical period. The experience should be worth having in its own right while leaving room for curiosity to take hold. Someone comes for trivia and encounters an exhibit. Friends come for an after-hours event and discover another program they want to attend. One experience creates a reason for the next.

During the Civic Decade, we have a generational opportunity to strengthen not only what Americans know about our history and system of government, but also their relationships with one another and with the institutions that sustain civic life. That requires thinking more expansively about who receives an invitation to participate, how we sustain those relationships across different stages of life, and what might bring people through the door.

Philanthropy has an important role to play. Exhibits, educational programs, scholarship, and civil dialogue remain essential. But joyful, social experiences deserve serious investment, too. Creating opportunities for people to gather and connect while welcoming new audiences into civic institutions is not peripheral to lifelong civic learning. It is part of building it.

The trivia night is not trivial. Done with purpose, it can give people a place to find one another and, in the process, help more Americans find a place for themselves in civic life and civic learning.

Subscribe now

Resources 

• Lindsey Cormack, How to Raise a Citizen (And why it’s up to you to do it), (2024) 

Stay Connected and Learn More 

• Stay connected with Civic Parenting—follow, rate, and review the show wherever you listen. 

• Questions or comments? Email podcast@constitutioncenter.org. 

• Follow @ConstitutionCtr on social media, explore more activities and programs designed for families from the National Constitution Center, or subscribe to receive our family resources email newsletter. 

• Support our important work by making a donation today. 

⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate 

This fall, millions of children will walk into classrooms carrying new backpacks, sharpened pencils, and all the nervous excitement of a new school year.

One of them will be my daughter Sophie.

She starts kindergarten in a few days, just weeks after celebrating America’s 250th birthday and her own fifth birthday. On July 4, Sophie and her younger sister, Charlotte, joined me and my husband at the National Constitution Center for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Amid the crowds and celebration, they were beginning to encounter the American story for themselves.

For Sophie, it was one of her earliest experiences with American history. For me, as both her mother and someone who spends every day thinking about the future of civic learning, it was impossible not to think about what comes next.

Sophie is beginning formal schooling at an extraordinary moment.

The 250th anniversary of the Declaration is not a culmination. It is the beginning of a much longer sequence of anniversaries and, with them, an extraordinary opportunity for civic learning. In 2037, when the nation marks the 250th anniversary of the Constitution, Sophie will be in high school, and Charlotte will be in middle school. In 2041, when we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Bill of Rights, Sophie will be a young adult, and her little sister will be turning 18.

Those dates can feel distant on a calendar. As a mother, they suddenly do not feel distant at all.

In a very real sense, the Civic Decade will span my daughters’ childhoods. It will carry them from some of their earliest encounters with the American story through the years when they begin to ask harder questions, form their own views, and discover more fully what it means to participate in and help shape our constitutional democracy.

That makes me think differently about what these next 15 years can be.

At the National Constitution Center, we have been talking about the Civic Decade as the generational opportunity stretching from America’s 250th through the 250th anniversaries of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. These anniversaries give us moments of national attention. But anniversaries alone do not produce civic knowledge, strengthen civic institutions, or create habits of citizenship.

We have to decide what to do with them. And one way to think about that work is through the children beginning their education in this anniversary year.

What if we treated this fall not simply as the beginning of another school year, but as the first day of a 15-year civic learning journey?

Imagine what we could build if we began with the expectation that a child entering school in 2026 should have repeated opportunities, across childhood and adolescence, to encounter the ideas, history, institutions, and debates that shape our constitutional democracy.

Not a single civics course in eighth grade. Not a unit on the Constitution in high school. Not a worksheet on Constitution Day once a year. A lifelong learning journey.

At five, that might begin with stories: Who were the people who came before us? Why did they decide to declare independence? What did they mean when they wrote that all people are created equal? What promises did America make, and where have we fallen short?

As children grow, the questions can grow with them. Why did Americans decide they needed a Constitution? Why divide power among different branches and levels of government? Why protect speech, religion, assembly, and petition? How has the meaning of equality changed over time? What happens when constitutional principles collide? How have generations of Americans debated those questions, and how do we continue those discussions today?

By adolescence, students should not simply know that these debates exist. They should have the knowledge and confidence to enter them: to read primary sources, weigh evidence, understand competing constitutional arguments, listen seriously to people who see a question differently, and develop views of their own.

And learning need not happen only in school.

Children learn from parents and grandparents, museums and libraries, historic sites and community institutions. They learn through books and podcasts and digital experiences. They learn by visiting places where history happened, asking questions around a dinner table, hearing family stories, and discovering that the debates of the past are connected to questions unfolding around them today.

That is why the Civic Decade should be an invitation to think about civic learning across a lifetime, beginning early, deepening over time, and happening everywhere learning happens.

So what should we do with these 15 years?

We should build connected pathways for civic learning, so that what a child encounters at five can be revisited with greater depth at 10, 15, and 18. We should invest deeply in teachers, pairing rigorous, nonpartisan resources with sustained professional learning that strengthens their own knowledge and practice. We should create more opportunities for families to learn across generations, and connect schools more intentionally with museums, libraries, historic sites, and other civic institutions. And we should use technology responsibly to make the best civic learning accessible to anyone, anywhere, while creating clearer pathways for lifelong learning. But that must be matched by a human strategy that gives young people more opportunities to learn with others, build relationships across differences, and participate meaningfully in the civic life around them.

Just as importantly, we should spend these 15 years building a much stronger evidence base for civic learning. We should measure not simply how many people participate, but what they know and retain, whether they become more curious and confident learners, whether they can engage seriously with different perspectives, and whether their curiosity leads them to seek out new opportunities to deepen their understanding. Fifteen years gives us the chance to track that growth over time, understand what produces durable impact, and use what we discover to make each opportunity more meaningful.

If we deliver that promise, Sophie and Charlotte should grow up with civic learning that builds as they do: encountering the American story first through family experiences and stories, then through increasingly sophisticated classroom learning, visits to civic institutions, conversations across generations, interactions with primary sources, constitutional debates and discussions, and opportunities to develop and test ideas of their own. By the time they reach adulthood, my hope is that they will see civics not as a subject they once took in school, but as a lifelong practice.

And if we do this well, the benefits should extend far beyond their generation. The children who begin kindergarten in 2041 should inherit better-prepared teachers, stronger civic institutions, richer and more accessible resources, connected learning pathways, and far more evidence about how civic knowledge and habits actually take root and endure.

That is what makes this 15-year horizon so powerful. We have time to accompany one generation from childhood to adulthood while building something stronger for the generations that follow.

In a few days, I will send Sophie off to kindergarten. I will be thinking, as parents do, about everything I hope she learns and the person I hope she becomes. But I will also be thinking about the responsibility those of us who work in civic learning share for her generation.

America has given us a remarkable series of anniversaries around which to organize this work. Our task is to make the years between them count, so that the generation coming of age across the Civic Decade is ready to carry the work of self-government forward and strengthen it for the generations that follow.

Subscribe now

Share

When we talk about civic education, we usually talk about young people.

What should students know about the Constitution? How should schools teach American history? How can we prepare the next generation for citizenship?

These are essential questions. But they start from an assumption worth reconsidering: that civic learning is primarily something older generations provide to younger ones.

What if, instead, we thought of civic learning as something generations do together, rooted in relationships, animated by curiosity and joy, and designed to continue across a lifetime?

Long before children encounter civics in a classroom, they are developing ideas about fairness, responsibility, community, freedom, and belonging alongside the adults in their lives. They hear family stories. They watch how adults respond to disagreement. They ask questions about the world around them. They visit museums, libraries, historic sites, parks, and places of worship.

These experiences may not look like traditional civic education. But they are part of how we learn what it means to live in a community and participate in a self-governing society.

And they point toward an opportunity we have only begun to meaningfully explore as a field.

What Generations Can Learn From One Another

We know that families matter to civic learning. Research has found connections between conversations at home and young people’s civic knowledge and engagement. Parents and other adults model habits of participation and help shape how young people understand public life.

But learning inside families doesn’t travel in only one direction. Children bring home questions and ideas of their own. Research has documented this exchange, including evidence that young people can influence their parents’ civic behavior. One study found that parents became more likely to vote when a child living at home became newly eligible to vote.

That shouldn’t be surprising. Learning across generations is powerful precisely because each generation brings something the others cannot. A grandparent brings memory and lived experience. A parent brings context. A child brings curiosity and questions that adults may have stopped asking. Put those perspectives in conversation and something different happens: history becomes personal, familiar stories can be seen anew, and a question asked by one generation can spark discovery in another. The learning happens in the exchange.

That is what makes intergenerational civic learning so promising. The adult does not always have to be the teacher, or the child the student. Each can deepen the other’s understanding.

Joy Belongs in Civic Learning

There is another part of this that I think we often underestimate: joy.

Civics is serious. Constitutional democracy asks us to wrestle with difficult questions about power, rights, liberty, equality, responsibility, and citizenship. Good civic education should never shy away from that complexity. But serious learning does not have to feel solemn.

Think about how families naturally learn together. They tell stories. Play games. Explore new places. Ask questions. Solve problems. Debate answers. Laugh. Compete. Discover. These aren’t distractions from learning. They are invitations into it.

Research on learning through play points to the value of experiences that are active, engaging, meaningful, socially interactive, iterative, and joyful. Research in museums and other informal learning environments similarly shows how shared experiences can prompt questions, explanations, and exploration between children and adults.

Joy doesn’t mean making civics easy or merely entertaining. It means creating the conditions for curiosity. A joyful encounter with history can prompt another question. That question can lead to a book, a museum visit, a conversation with a grandparent, or deeper exploration in school.

The goal isn’t simply to make someone enjoy a civic activity. It is to create the civic spark that makes them want to know and explore more.

Testing the Idea

At the National Constitution Center, we’ve become increasingly interested in understanding what joyful, intergenerational civic learning can look like and how it can deepen learning for children and adults.

That’s why this past year we launched Civic Quest, a play-based family learning experience for children ages 7–12 and the adults in their lives. Through hands-on missions of discovery, families decode clues, encounter historical characters with different points of view, and explore the people and ideas that shaped the nation. Along the way, they practice civic skills such as listening to different perspectives, asking questions, and working together to solve problems.

Thanks to philanthropic support, we committed to making the first 20,000 Civic Quest sets free to families nationwide. The first 10,000 are already in families’ hands, and demand has been so strong that another 10,000 are now being produced for families on our waitlists. The incredible response has also encouraged us to begin developing the next Civic Quest box, extending the experience into another chapter of America’s constitutional story.

We also launched Trivial Pursuit: Exploring America’s Story, a special edition of the classic game designed intentionally for generations to play together. Its 600 questions are divided evenly between kids and adults and span six categories, from the American Revolution and branches of government to voices from history and the places where history happened. It’s a simple design choice with an important effect: everyone at the table has something to contribute, and everyone has something to learn.

The games are different, but the hypothesis behind them is the same: civic learning can be rigorous and substantive while also being playful, social, and shared.

Early enthusiasm is encouraging. But participation and enjoyment aren’t the same as learning. That’s why we’re working with Dr. Ashley Berner and the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Education Policy on a nine-month study of Civic Quest examining its effects on children and parents and caregivers. We want to know what happens when families learn this way: What do they learn and remember? Does play generate meaningful conversation? Do children and adults learn from one another? Does the experience spark curiosity that continues after the game ends?

Civic Quest is one case study. During the Civic Decade, the Center is committed to helping build a stronger evidence base for intergenerational civic learning and putting what we learn into practice. We want to develop and test experiences that are rigorous, joyful, and designed to endure, creating opportunities for children and adults to learn with and from one another in homes and communities across the country.

The Civic Decade gives us an opportunity to make this kind of learning a lasting part of our civic culture. If we want civic learning to endure from one generation to the next, we need to create more opportunities for generations to learn alongside and from one another.

Cited Research

Family conversation and civic development: Hugh McIntosh, Daniel Hart, and James Youniss, “The Influence of Family Political Discussion on Youth Civic Development: Which Parent Qualities Matter?” PS: Political Science & Politics 40, no. 3 (2007).

Young people influencing parents: Jens Olav Dahlgaard, “Trickle-Up Political Socialization: The Causal Effect on Turnout of Parenting a Newly Enfranchised Voter” American Political Science Review 112, no. 3 (2018).

Joy and playful learning: Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and colleagues, “Making Schools Work: An Equation for Active Playful Learning” Theory Into Practice (2023).

Families learning together: Maureen Callanan and colleagues, “Exploration, Explanation, and Parent–Child Interaction in Museums” Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 85, no. 1 (2020)

America’s civic institutions are all around us.

They are the museums that preserve our history and inspire our curiosity. The libraries where neighbors gather to learn and exchange ideas. The historic sites and national parks that connect us to the people and places that shaped our nation. The bookstores that bring authors and ideas into communities. The historical societies, archives, universities, community organizations, and cultural institutions that help us better understand our shared past and imagine our shared future.

We visit these places every day. We bring our children to them. We volunteer at them. We attend lectures, exhibitions, performances, and community conversations within their walls.

Yet we rarely think about them collectively.

Together, they form America’s shared civic infrastructure: a remarkable national network of trusted institutions that preserves our history, strengthens our communities, and creates lifelong opportunities to explore the Constitution, our civic traditions, and the responsibilities of self-government.

America already possesses one of the world’s greatest civic resources. The challenge is not building it. The challenge is recognizing its value, strengthening it, connecting it, and inviting more people to experience it.

The scale is extraordinary.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has estimated that more than 35,000 museums operate across the United States, a broad universe that includes history and art museums, science centers, children’s museums, historic organizations, botanical gardens, zoos, aquariums, and more. A more recent national census identified more than 21,000 history organizations alone, many of them small organizations deeply rooted in their communities. And more than 120,000 libraries of all kinds serve communities across the country, including more than 17,000 public library locations.

Our civic infrastructure extends far beyond them. More than 100,000 properties are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, encompassing roughly 2 million historic resources. The National Park Service stewards 433 sites, while states collectively care for nearly 10,000 state park units. National Heritage Areas, presidential libraries, universities, archives, independent bookstores, cultural institutions, and community organizations extend this network even further.

The result is an extraordinary civic architecture spread across the country: places in communities large and small where Americans can encounter history, ideas, culture, and one another. These are the places where civic life happens.

Every day, families discover history together. Children encounter our nation’s founding documents for the first time. Visitors wrestle with difficult chapters of our past. Neighbors gather for conversations about their communities. Scholars bring new perspectives to enduring constitutional questions. Millions of Americans experience moments of curiosity, discovery, reflection, and connection that deepen their understanding of our country.

These experiences matter because civic learning is not confined to a single stage of life. It unfolds over a lifetime. A visit to a museum sparks a question. A conversation at a library deepens understanding. A book discovered at a neighborhood bookstore opens a new perspective. A walk through a historic site makes the past feel tangible. A public program brings people together around an idea. Each experience builds on the last, helping people develop the knowledge, judgment, and civic habits that sustain constitutional democracy.

Our civic institutions make those lifelong learning journeys possible. Yet despite their importance, we too often treat them as optional amenities rather than essential civic infrastructure.

Many operate with limited staff and resources. A small historical society may have deep knowledge of its community but little capacity to develop new educational programs. An independent bookstore may have the space and trusted relationships to convene an important civic conversation but lack the resources to identify speakers or build a program around it. A local museum may want to reach teachers and families but have limited capacity to develop curriculum or train staff.

The Civic Decade offers an opportunity to change that.

Larger civic institutions, universities, national organizations, and philanthropy can look beyond the boundaries of their own programs and ask how their resources can strengthen this broader civic infrastructure. Major museums can share programming and professional development with smaller institutions. They can connect scholars with libraries, bookstores, and historical societies. National organizations can make high-quality educational resources available to local partners. Funders can invest not only in individual programs, but in the relationships and shared capacity that allow institutions to learn from one another.

The goal is not to make these institutions the same or impose national programming from above. It is to help them do more of what they already do best: understand their communities, build trusted relationships, and create experiences that bring people together. Our civic infrastructure becomes stronger when knowledge, resources, and expertise are shared.

For those of us who lead, work in, fund, or partner with civic institutions, the charge is to strengthen this shared infrastructure and expand what it can offer.

But the future of these institutions does not rest on civic leaders alone. All of us have a role to play, and it begins with something wonderfully simple: Visit. And then return.

Walk through the doors of your local museum. Attend a program at your public library. Browse an independent bookstore. Explore a nearby historic site. Spend a day in a national or state park. Join a community conversation. Become a member. Bring a friend. Bring your children. Then come back for the next exhibition, conversation, book, or discovery.

Civic learning unfolds over a lifetime, and these institutions give us places to keep learning. The more often we enter them, participate in their programs, support their work, and make them part of our family and community lives, the richer our own civic lives become and the stronger these institutions become in return.

That is the opportunity of the Civic Decade: not to invent a new civic architecture, but to recognize the extraordinary one already all around us and invest in it from both directions. Institutions with greater capacity can help strengthen it. Individuals can experience, participate in, and support it.

If we do both, the legacy of these anniversary years will not simply be the celebrations we held. It will be a stronger civic infrastructure, more deeply woven into American life, for the generations that follow.

Find Civic Institutions Near You

Want to explore the civic institutions in your own community or where you’re traveling? The American Alliance of Museums offers a Find a Museum directory to help you discover museums across the country. You can also use the libraries.org directory to find public, academic, school, and other libraries near you.

Share

Resources

• Schoolhouse Rock Live! at the National Constitution Center 

• Schoolhouse Rock Apparel, National Constitution Center 

• Schoolhouse Rock Live, Theatrebam Chicago

Stay Connected and Learn More 

• Stay connected with Civic Parenting—follow, rate, and review the show wherever you listen.

• Questions or comments? Email podcast@constitutioncenter.org.

• Follow @ConstitutionCtr on social media, explore more activities and programs designed for families from the National Constitution Center, or subscribe to receive our family resources email newsletter.

• Support our important work by making a donation today. 

⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate 

America’s 250th anniversary invited us to look backward. It should also compel us to establish a baseline for the future.

A new national survey from the Cato Institute offers one of the fullest portraits yet of what Americans know, believe, fear, and hope at the beginning of the Civic Decade. Its findings are encouraging and unsettling. Americans retain a deep attachment to the country, its founding principles, and the Constitution. But that attachment often rests on a thin foundation of knowledge, it is distributed unevenly across generations and communities, and it does not always translate into a consistent commitment to constitutional restraint when those limits stand in the way of a desired political outcome.

The survey has understandably generated headlines about civic knowledge. But I believe its greatest value lies elsewhere. The Cato data should become the Civic Decade’s baseline for measuring progress.

To justify its promise, the initiative must become more than a series of commemorations. It should leave the country civically stronger. If the Civic Decade is truly a once-in-a-generation opportunity to strengthen the civic knowledge, constitutional culture, and institutions that sustain self-government, then we should be able to measure whether we are succeeding. Fifteen years from now, we should know far more than how many programs we offered, how many people attended, or how many resources were downloaded. We should know whether the country itself has changed.

The survey’s headline-grabbing finding gives us a sobering data point: only 53% of Americans correctly identified the adoption of the Declaration of Independence as the event commemorated by America’s 250th anniversary. Among Gen Z, that number fell to 39%.

But the more revealing gaps concern the purposes of our constitutional system. According to the Cato survey, only 41% identified the Constitution’s principal purpose as establishing and limiting government power. Just 54% knew that the Constitution creates three branches of government. Far more Americans recognized George Washington as the first president.

That distinction matters. Americans may know the symbols and personalities of the founding without understanding its constitutional logic. They may know the Constitution exists without grasping how divided powers, institutional restraints, and protected rights preserve freedom. Understanding how these ideas connect, not simply recalling historical facts, is the essence of civic knowledge.

At the same time, the Cato survey offers powerful evidence against the idea that Americans have abandoned the country or its founding ideals. 86% say they are grateful to be American. 79% are proud to be American. Large majorities view the founding and the Constitution favorably and believe the Constitution remains essential to protecting liberty.

This combination matters: limited knowledge coexists with substantial attachment. That should change how we describe the challenge. The public is not a blank slate. There is a reservoir of gratitude, belonging, and belief on which to build. But that attachment may be intuitive rather than informed, general rather than durable, and vulnerable to partisan pressure.

We do not have to persuade most Americans that freedom and the Constitution matter. We have to help them understand more deeply what those principles require, how the constitutional system works, how its promises have expanded over time, and what responsibilities fall to each generation that inherits them.

The Cato survey also points to another challenge that deserves far more attention: civic belonging.

According to the data, 71% of Americans believe the ideals and institutions of the founding are part of their inheritance. But that sense of ownership varies dramatically across generations and racial groups. It is significantly stronger among older Americans than among Gen Z, and stronger among white Americans than among Black and Hispanic Americans.

A constitutional democracy cannot flourish if its history and institutions feel like they belong to only some Americans. One of the Civic Decade’s most important goals should be to not only expand civic knowledge, but also deepen civic belonging. Do more Americans see themselves in our constitutional story? Do they understand both its achievements and its shortcomings? Do they recognize themselves as heirs to its promises and stewards of its future?

One of the most revealing findings in the Cato survey concerns constitutional culture rather than constitutional knowledge.

Most Americans support divided government, limits on political power, and acceptance of Supreme Court rulings. Yet a substantial share also believe it may be acceptable for a president they support to stretch the Constitution to achieve a preferred political outcome. It is relatively easy to support constitutional principles in the abstract. Constitutional culture is tested when those principles necessarily constrain our own political preferences. Favorability toward the Constitution is not the same as fidelity to it.

The survey also reinforces yet another insight that deserves greater attention. 77% of Americans agree that for a country to remain free, most people must try to be good, honest, and responsible.

That finding echoes one of the central premises of the Civic Decade. Constitutional democracy depends not only on constitutions, laws, and institutions, but also on the character and conduct of the people who bring them to life. The Constitution can divide power. It cannot compel restraint. The First Amendment can preserve space for disagreement. It cannot teach us how to continue sharing a country across profound differences.

The Cato survey is a valuable snapshot, but it also exposes the limits of how we currently measure civic learning. Measuring reach is not the same as measuring impact. The Civic Decade should challenge us to move beyond counting participation to instead understanding meaningful impact.

Between the Declaration’s 250th anniversary in 2026, the Constitution’s in 2037, and the Bill of Rights’ in 2041, we have an extraordinary opportunity to establish baselines, test approaches, compare interventions, follow participants over time, and adapt based on evidence.

No single institution can do this alone. Researchers, educators, museums, libraries, historic sites, schools, universities, philanthropies, and community organizations should build a shared Civic Decade research agenda, combining repeated national surveys with longitudinal and qualitative studies.

Most importantly, we should not wait until 2041 to revisit the questions the Cato survey asks today. We should ask them every year throughout the Civic Decade and measure whether sustained investments in civic learning are changing the answers.

Are more Americans developing a deeper understanding of how and why the Constitution limits power? Do more young people see the founding as part of their inheritance? Are gaps in civic belonging narrowing? Are more Americans willing to uphold constitutional principles even when those principles constrain their own side? Do more people believe the country’s best days can still be ahead?

Just as importantly, we should measure which civic learning experiences are producing these outcomes. Which approaches create lasting impact? For whom? Under what conditions?

By the time we reach the Constitution’s 250th anniversary in 2037 and the Bill of Rights’ 250th anniversary in 2041, we should be able to demonstrate not only whether America’s civic health has improved, but also which investments and experiences made that progress possible.

Every generation inherits the responsibilities of self-government. Every generation must also acquire the knowledge to sustain it.

The nation’s founders understood this well. James Madison wrote, “… a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” Thomas Jefferson believed that education was essential to the preservation of liberty. John Adams argued that republican government ultimately rested on the knowledge and character of the people themselves.

A free people must be an informed people. That is not simply an aspiration. It is one of the essential conditions of constitutional self-government.

But recognizing the importance of civic knowledge has never been the same as ensuring that people have the means to acquire it.

Every generation must ask not only what citizens should know, but how a free society creates opportunities for people to deepen their understanding of the Constitution, their communities, and the responsibilities of citizenship over the course of a lifetime.

Today, research on learning has deepened our understanding of how that journey unfolds. Learning is not confined to childhood or the classroom. It is a lifelong process of curiosity, discovery, reflection, and growth. We revisit important ideas with new experiences, new questions, and new perspectives. Knowledge accumulates. Judgment matures. Wisdom deepens.

Citizenship follows that same path.

It begins with a spark.

A child asks why rules matter. A family gathers with neighbors for a Fourth of July parade. A teacher introduces the Declaration of Independence. A visit to a museum or historic site brings history to life. A librarian recommends a book about a historical figure or event. A podcast sparks a conversation during a morning commute. A public program inspires someone to pick up a pocket Constitution they have not opened in years.

These moments may seem ordinary. Yet each has the power to awaken curiosity, invite exploration, and begin a lifelong constitutional learning journey.

But the spark is only the beginning.

A lifelong civic learning journey is not a straight path. It unfolds across a lifetime, shaped by age, experience, and the questions we encounter along the way. The questions we ask at age 6 are different from the questions we ask at 16, 36, or 76. As our lives unfold, so does our understanding of the Constitution, our responsibilities as citizens, and one another.

Imagine what it would mean if every American had the opportunity to follow that journey.

The journey would begin in families, where children first encounter fairness, responsibility, and belonging. It would deepen in schools, where students build the constitutional knowledge and historical understanding that prepare them for citizenship. It would expand in colleges and universities, where many learners first engage in sustained inquiry, wrestle with competing ideas, and develop habits of intellectual curiosity that can last a lifetime. It would continue through museums, libraries, historic sites, bookstores, community organizations, podcasts, public dialogue, and digital learning experiences that invite people to return to constitutional questions throughout their lives. Civic learning would no longer be something we associate primarily with childhood or formal education. It would become a lifelong habit of curiosity, exploration, and constitutional reflection.

This is one of the great opportunities of the Civic Decade.

For too long, we have relied on schools and classroom educators to shoulder the primary responsibility for civic formation. Yet we have not invested in civic education as fully as we should, nor have we built the broader network of institutions and experiences that support lifelong civic learning.

The answer is not to ask less of schools. It is to ask more of all of us.

We should strengthen civic education in schools so every young person develops a strong constitutional foundation. We should make civic parenting the norm rather than the exception, giving families the tools, confidence, and opportunities to explore our constitutional story together. We should encourage colleges and universities to embrace civic learning not as a single course or graduation requirement, but as a central part of preparing students for lives of informed citizenship and constitutional self-government. We should reinvest in the museums, libraries, historic sites, bookstores, and community organizations that make civic learning possible in communities large and small. And we should create many more opportunities for adults to continue learning through public programs, exhibitions, podcasts, digital experiences, civil dialogue, and university-quality courses throughout their lives.

No single institution can cultivate an informed citizenry. Nor should it.

A constitutional democracy depends on a constellation of institutions that accompany us throughout our lives, each inviting us back into our shared constitutional story with new questions, new experiences, and new opportunities to learn.

The anniversaries before us should inspire renewed investment in the institutions, partnerships, and places where civic learning happens over the course of a lifetime. They should encourage us to build the civic learning infrastructure that a constitutional democracy requires, ensuring that every American, regardless of age or background, has meaningful opportunities to explore the Constitution, wrestle with constitutional questions, engage in civil dialogue, and continue growing as a citizen.

At the National Constitution Center, we hope to help lead that broader effort. Our role is to invite learners of every age into America’s constitutional story, to spark curiosity, deepen understanding, and create opportunities for sustained lifelong constitutional learning. Not because one institution can build a culture of lifelong civic learning on its own, but because every institution has an important role to play.

The founders remind us that a free people must be an informed people.

The Civic Decade invites us to ensure that every generation has the opportunity to become one.

Constitutions create governments. People sustain them.

That simple distinction may be one of the defining lessons of the Civic Decade.

A constitution establishes the framework of self-government. It distributes power, protects rights, creates institutions, and provides peaceful means for resolving disagreement. But constitutions alone cannot create the civic habits, institutions, or culture that allow constitutional democracy to endure. Those must be built, practiced, and renewed by each generation.

Judge Learned Hand captured this truth when he warned that we often “rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts.” Liberty, he reminded us, “lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court. . . can save it.”

Hand was not dismissing the Constitution. As one of America’s most respected judges at the time, he understood the indispensable role of constitutions, laws, and courts. His point was more demanding: governing institutions cannot preserve liberty if the people themselves cease to value it.

As we enter the Civic Decade, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to strengthen the constitutional culture that allows constitutional democracy to endure and flourish.

Constitutional culture is the civic life that surrounds, supports, and gives meaning to our constitutional system. It is the body of knowledge, habits, relationships, institutions, expectations, and moral commitments through which a society learns to live under a constitution.

It includes an understanding of constitutional principles and history. But knowledge alone is not enough.

Constitutional culture also includes habits of restraint: the willingness to exercise less power than one might possess, to respect legitimate opposition, to accept lawful outcomes, and to preserve rules that may one day protect one’s adversaries as well as oneself.

It includes habits of participation: voting, serving, organizing, deliberating, volunteering, petitioning, persuading, and taking responsibility for the life of one’s community.

It includes habits of relationship: learning to work with people whose experiences and convictions differ from our own, building trust through common effort, and recognizing that citizenship creates obligations among strangers.

And it includes a shared conviction that constitutional democracy is not someone else’s responsibility. It is a common inheritance entrusted to each of us.

The idea is far older than the United States Constitution.

Ancient thinkers understood political life not simply as a contest for power, but as a formative activity. Aristotle argued that political communities shape the character of their citizens. Although his conception of citizenship reflected the exclusions of the ancient world, he offered an enduring insight: political institutions do more than govern people. They help form them.

Centuries later, Montesquieu carefully examined constitutional design. He insisted that institutions alone could not sustain a republic. Every republic, he argued, depends upon political virtue. By this he meant not private perfection, but a love of the republic and its laws and a willingness to place the public good above private interest.

The American Founders inherited both traditions.

They did not believe that human beings could be trusted with unchecked power. That is why they created separated institutions, check and balances, federalism, representation, and regular elections.

But neither did they believe that constitutional machinery could compensate for every human failing.

In Federalist No. 55, James Madison acknowledged the darker elements of human nature that make safeguards necessary. But he also insisted that republican government presupposes enough esteem, confidence, and virtue among the people to make self-government possible. A political system built entirely on distrust could not remain republican at all.

John Adams put the matter even more directly: “Public Virtue cannot exist in a Nation without private Virtue, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics.”

Constitutional design could restrain power. Civic life would have to cultivate a people capable of exercising it wisely.

Few thinkers understood the relationship between constitutional design and civic life more clearly than Alexis de Tocqueville. He came to America searching for the deeper sources of democratic self-government. He studied constitutions and laws, but he looked beyond them. He paid attention to townships, churches, newspapers, voluntary associations, juries, families, and the countless settings in which Americans learned to act together.

These institutions mattered because they taught the practice of freedom. In associations, individuals discovered that problems they could not solve alone might be addressed through common effort. They learned to organize, deliberate, compromise, persuade, lead, follow, and trust. Tocqueville believed that associations were especially necessary in democratic societies because they allowed ordinary people to combine their energies and resist both isolation and excessive dependence on centralized power.

This is what we mean by civic life. It is where constitutional culture takes root.

It is not simply politics. In fact, much of it takes place far from electoral campaigns and government institutions. It unfolds wherever people assume responsibility for something they share.

It is the parent who brings children to a library and introduces them to stories larger than their own.

It is the teacher who creates a classroom in which students learn to disagree without withdrawing from one another.

It is the neighbor who organizes a food drive, the volunteer who serves on a local board, the journalist who reports carefully, the congregation that cares for its community, and the museum that helps visitors encounter the beauty and complexity of the American story.

It is the debate society, the youth sports league, the historical association, the community foundation, the local newspaper, the book club, the service organization, and the town meeting.

These institutions do more than meet immediate needs. At their best, they form citizens.

Modern scholars have given new language to some of what Tocqueville observed. Robert Putnam called it social capital: the networks, relationships, and habits of trust that allow people to cooperate. His work warned that as participation in civic and community life declines, societies lose more than clubs and meetings. They lose the connective tissue that enables people to solve common problems and sustain a shared civic life.

Constitutional culture requires social trust, but it is more than social cohesion. A society may be tightly connected and still be unjust. People can possess strong bonds within their own communities while remaining suspicious of everyone outside them. Civic life can reinforce exclusion as easily as belonging.

A healthy constitutional culture therefore requires more than connection. It asks us to build relationships across lines of difference and to bind our civic life to constitutional principles: liberty, equality, human dignity, the rule of law, and freedom of conscience, to name a few.

It requires both conviction and humility. Both majority rule and minority rights. Both attachment to community and respect for the individual conscience.

Learned Hand offered perhaps the clearest description of the civic disposition constitutional democracy requires. The spirit of liberty, he said, is “not too sure that it is right.” It seeks to understand the minds of others and remembers that even the least powerful person deserves to be heard.

Hand was describing the discipline of democratic life. The humility to recognize that no individual or faction possesses the whole truth. The courage to defend the freedom of those whose views we reject. The generosity to weigh another person’s interests alongside our own. The restraint to refuse every power that law or circumstance might place within our reach. And the faith that our fellow citizens remain capable of reason, persuasion, growth, and common purpose.

None of these qualities can be manufactured by constitutional text alone. But neither do they arise spontaneously. They must be taught. Practiced. Modeled. Rewarded. Renewed. They must be cultivated in the institutions of civic life, long before they are tested in moments of constitutional tension or crisis.

That is why constitutional culture cannot be treated as a soft concern at the margins of public life. It is not ornamental to constitutional democracy. It is part of its essential infrastructure.

Schools can teach constitutional principles. Constitutional culture determines whether we practice them.

Courts can defend the freedom of speech. Constitutional culture determines whether we use that freedom to seek truth or merely to wound.

Elections can transfer political power. Constitutional culture determines whether winners exercise that power with restraint and losers remain committed to the system.

The Constitution can preserve space for disagreement. Constitutional culture determines whether we approach those disagreements with mutual respect and a shared commitment to self-government.

This does not mean that constitutional design is unimportant, or that civic virtue should be invoked to excuse institutional failure. Unjust laws must be changed. Broken institutions must be repaired. Constitutional rights must be enforced.

Institutions shape behavior, distribute opportunity, and influence the kind of civic culture that develops around them. And throughout American history, citizens denied full membership in the constitutional community have drawn upon the nation’s own principles to demand that its institutions become more just.

The relationship runs in both directions. Institutions can encourage trust or corrode it. They can reward cooperation or deepen division. They can widen participation or close it off.

But even the best institutions depend on people willing to use them for constitutional ends. Reforming the machinery of democracy will never eliminate the need to form democratic citizens.

This is the opportunity of the Civic Decade.

The anniversaries of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights invite us to do more than celebrate remarkable documents. They invite us to strengthen the constitutional culture that allows those documents to endure.

These questions cannot be answered in Washington alone. They belong to families and schools, museums and libraries, community organizations and houses of worship, philanthropists and universities, local leaders and ordinary citizens.

They belong wherever constitutional culture is being formed, which is to say, everywhere.

Constitutions create governments. People sustain them.

The future of constitutional democracy depends upon the civic life we choose to build together.

On July 4, Americans gathered in city parks, libraries, museums, historic sites, schools, houses of worship, and around kitchen tables to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

They came together for concerts and parades. They attended naturalization ceremonies. They visited historic places, planted liberty trees, volunteered in their communities, read the Declaration aloud with their families, and reflected on the ideals that have shaped our nation for two and a half centuries.

In the months leading up to the anniversary, many wondered whether America could still find ways to celebrate together. Some worried that the nation had become too divided, too fragmented, or too distracted to mark such a significant milestone in a meaningful way.

What we witnessed instead was something both quieter and more encouraging.

America celebrated. Not through a single defining national moment, but through thousands of local acts of participation, reflection, learning, service, and civic connection.

And that is exactly why America’s 250th matters.

The anniversary was never meant to be an endpoint. It was an invitation.

The Declaration of Independence marked the beginning of the American experiment, not its completion. The work of turning revolutionary ideals into durable institutions would take decades. The generation that declared independence in 1776 still had to win a war, build a nation, establish a system of self-government, and confront profound disagreements about what the future should look like.

Things did not always go according to plan.

The Articles of Confederation proved insufficient to meet many of the challenges facing the young nation. Economic instability, political divisions, and questions about national authority threatened the durability of the republic. Americans disagreed fiercely about the path forward. Many wondered whether the experiment would survive.

And yet they persevered.

Through debate, compromise, civic participation, and constitutional imagination, Americans built something extraordinary: the United States Constitution, the oldest continuously operating written national constitution in the world.

That achievement should remind us of something important today.

The generation of 1776 did not inherit a finished democracy. They built one. So must we.

That is why we believe the most important work of the semiquincentennial begins now. Over the next decade, as the nation moves toward the Constitution’s 250th anniversary in 2037 and the Bill of Rights’ 250th anniversary in 2041, America has an opportunity to undertake a new era of civic renewal.

Not because our challenges are identical to those of the founding generation, but because self-government always requires renewal. Democracy has never been self-executing. Every generation must learn it, practice it, strengthen it, and pass it on.

The civic decade ahead should be marked by new investments in civic education, both inside and outside the classroom. It should be marked by renewed support for civic institutions like museums, libraries, historic sites, parks, archives, schools, and community organizations that help Americans encounter one another and engage with our shared constitutional inheritance. It should be marked by efforts to rebuild social trust and strengthen the relationships that sustain healthy communities.

At a time when loneliness and social isolation have become defining challenges of modern life, civic institutions have a particularly important role to play. They create opportunities for people of different backgrounds and perspectives to gather around shared questions, shared experiences, and shared responsibilities. They help transform strangers into neighbors and communities into places of belonging.

The work ahead will not be easy. Building civic knowledge, strengthening civic habits, restoring trust, and creating opportunities for meaningful participation will require sustained effort. It will require leaders, educators, parents, students, philanthropists, policymakers, community organizations, and citizens working together over many years.

But great civic achievements have never been easy. The generation that followed 1776 faced uncertainty, disagreement, and fragility. They understood that the future of self-government depended not simply on lofty ideals, but on the hard work of building institutions capable of sustaining those ideals. Their work became our inheritance. Our work will become the inheritance of future generations.

So if America’s 250th did not inspire you to stay engaged, consider joining us for the civic decade ahead.

The fireworks have ended. The celebrations have concluded. But the most important work is just beginning.

The story of America has never been defined solely by what happened in 1776.

It has always been defined by what each generation chooses to do next.

This article was co-authored by Vince Stango, interim President and CEO of the National Constitution Center.

This article originally appeared in The Fulcrum on July 13, 2026.

From the founding, Americans understood that a republic depends on the character and judgment of its citizens. In the years after the Revolution, that insight took shape in what later came to be called “republican motherhood,” the belief that the success of the new nation required raising children with the virtue, knowledge, and discipline necessary for citizenship. The concept reflected the limits of its time, assigning that responsibility narrowly to mothers. But it also captured a deeper truth. Constitutions do not sustain themselves. Self-government endures only when each generation is prepared to understand, value, and uphold its principles.

For much of our history, preparing young people for citizenship was a shared responsibility. Families, schools, and civic institutions reinforced one another, creating a culture where civic learning was woven into daily life.

Today, that balance has broken down.

We have steadily placed more responsibility on schools to prepare young people for citizenship, even as we have reduced the space devoted to civic learning within them. At the same time, the broader ecosystem that once supported this work has weakened. In some communities, these institutions have disappeared altogether, creating what researchers describe as “civic deserts.” In others, they still exist but are no longer central to daily life. Participation in community organizations, religious institutions, and even cultural spaces like museums and historical sites has declined, leaving fewer shared spaces where people regularly encounter one another, engage across differences, and connect to our civic story.

Research from the Brookings Institution estimates that 60 percent of rural youth and 30 percent of urban and suburban young people now live in areas lacking these traditional civic institutions. Civic learning has steadily diminished in schools, even as expectations for what schools should deliver in preparing citizens have grown. Fewer than one-quarter of eighth graders perform at or above proficiency in civics, and many adults cannot name all three branches of government.

We are asking schools to do more, with less, while the institutions that once reinforced that learning have grown weaker or more distant from everyday life. It is an imbalance we can no longer ignore.

The responsibility once described as republican motherhood now belongs to all of us. Parents, caregivers, and families of every kind share in preparing the next generation for life in a constitutional democracy. This is the work of civic parenting.

Civic parenting is not a formal program. It lives in the ordinary rhythms of daily life. It is the intentional practice of welcoming children into the American story and helping them develop the habits that self-government requires.

When a parent reads a book about the American Revolution with a child, that is civic formation. When a family visits a museum or attends a historical program together, that is civic formation. When a parent asks a child to take responsibility at home, that is civic formation. When a parent encourages a child to explain their thinking or works through disagreement with patience rather than dismissal, that too is civic formation.

These moments may seem small, but they are where the habits of citizenship begin. Listening. Reasoning. Exercising restraint. Engaging across difference. These are not learned in a single civics class. They are developed over time, in families, schools, and communities.

If we want a citizenry capable of self-government, we must rebalance the system.

That means continuing to support teachers and schools, while also recognizing that they cannot carry this responsibility alone. It means rebuilding the connections between classrooms, homes, and communities. It means creating accessible entry points that spark curiosity and invite participation. And it means meeting families where they are, with tools and experiences that make civic learning part of everyday life.

Institutions have a role to play here, not as replacements for families, but as partners. At the National Constitution Center, we are working to support this effort by creating pathways that begin with moments of curiosity and lead to deeper constitutional learning, whether in classrooms, online, or around kitchen tables.

The nation’s 250th anniversary this year is not simply a moment to look back. It is an invitation to decide what we will carry forward. It marks the beginning of a civic decade leading to the Constitution’s 250th anniversary in 2037, a period that calls for reflection, renewal, and recommitment.

It should be the decade we correct this imbalance. A decade that makes civic parenting a cultural expectation, not an afterthought. A decade that restores a founding understanding that families, schools, and civic institutions must work together to prepare each new generation for self-government.

This work is not beyond reach. It requires intention. And it can be meaningful and even joyful. When families are supported in it, the impact is profound. It strengthens the nation by preparing citizens capable of self-government. It helps young people develop judgment, curiosity, and civic confidence. And it deepens connections within families themselves.

The Constitution promises the blessings of liberty to “ourselves and our posterity.” That promise depends on what we choose to pass on.

The civic decade calls us to meet that responsibility together and to make civic parenting not the exception, but the expectation.

This article originally appeared in The Fulcrum on May 5, 2026.

As we commemorate the Declaration of Independence’s 250th anniversary, Americans are asking familiar questions. Who were the founders? What did they believe? How did this nation begin?

But there is another question that deserves just as much attention: Where do I fit into this story? For many people, the answer begins with family history.

Genealogy is often thought of as a personal hobby or a search for long-lost relatives. But it can also be a powerful way of understanding American history itself. Every family story is woven into larger stories of migration, community, work, faith, conflict, aspiration, and civic life. Exploring where we come from can help us better understand not only our own identities but also the nation we have inherited together.

Recent historical research suggests that genealogy played a much more significant role in the founding era than is commonly recognized. Many founders, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, carefully documented and studied their own family histories, viewing genealogy as a way to better understand their inheritance and their place in a changing world. Family relationships influenced inheritance, citizenship, political power, religious life, and legal standing. Rather than being a side concern, genealogy helped shape the very structure of the society the founders were building.

Across early America, people of diverse backgrounds preserved their histories in countless ways: through family Bibles, letters, oral traditions, quilts, gravestones, church records, court documents, and stories passed from one generation to the next. Enslaved families fought to preserve family connections despite systems designed to erase them. Indigenous communities maintained rich traditions of kinship and ancestry. Immigrant families carried family histories across oceans and into new communities. Genealogy has always been both deeply personal and profoundly civic.

That insight feels especially important as we celebrate America’s 250th.

The Declaration of Independence tells us that all people are created equal and speaks of “one people” coming together to dissolve the political bonds that once tied them to another nation. The Constitution begins with three simple words: “We the People.” Those ideals have always been aspirational, inviting each generation to expand the circle of belonging and help the nation live more fully up to its founding promises.

Genealogy offers another way into that ongoing work It also reminds us why primary sources matter.

When we explore our own family histories, we rarely rely on secondhand accounts alone. We search for birth certificates, naturalization papers, census records, death certificates, marriage licenses, letters, photographs, family Bibles, and other documents created by the people who lived those lives. These records allow us to move beyond inherited stories and encounter the past on its own terms.

The same is true of our nation’s history. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, letters between the founders, petitions, diaries, speeches, newspapers, and court records are, in many ways, America’s genealogy. They are primary sources that reveal who we were, what we believed, what we debated, and how our constitutional democracy came to be. Just as discovering an ancestor’s signature on a naturalization record can make family history suddenly feel real, reading the Declaration in its own words or encountering the voices of ordinary Americans who petitioned for greater liberty and equality can make our national story feel immediate and personal.

Whether we are exploring our family’s genealogy or our nation’s constitutional history, primary sources invite the same habits of mind: curiosity, close observation, empathy, and the humility to recognize that every story is richer and more complex than we first imagined.

Looking into our family histories often reveals journeys across oceans and borders, service to country, moments of hardship and resilience, and efforts to build new lives and communities. Sometimes we uncover histories we never knew. Sometimes we encounter difficult truths. Often, we find both. In every case, we are reminded that American history is not distant or abstract. It was shaped through millions of individual lives, each contributing another chapter to a story that continues today.

That perspective makes this a particularly meaningful moment to explore family history. Starting on July 4, 2026 and running through the end of August 2026, visitors to the National Constitution Center can experience The Stories of US Discovery Center, presented by Ancestry, where historical records and interactive experiences invite people to discover connections between their own families and the broader American story.

The experience also reflects a broader commitment to preserving our shared history. Through Ancestry’s partnership with the City of Philadelphia, approximately 20 million historical records, including birth, marriage, death, naturalization, and property records, will be digitized over the next two years, expanding access to the stories of the people who helped shape both Philadelphia and the nation.

These efforts are about more than preserving the past. They invite us to see history as something we inherit together and continue to write together. That idea is at the heart of the National Constitution Center’s Our Story Continues campaign, which encourages all of us to recognize our place in the nation’s ongoing constitutional story.

Understanding the past helps us better understand one another and ourselves. It reminds us that every family has a story worth telling and that every community has helped shape the nation we have inherited.

Civic learning begins with connection. Sometimes that connection starts with reading the Declaration. Sometimes it begins with visiting a historic place. Sometimes it starts around a family dinner table. And sometimes it begins by discovering the name of a great-grandparent in a centuries-old record.

As Americans gather in Philadelphia during this historic anniversary year, I hope they will not only reflect on the nation’s founding documents but also ask what stories brought their own families to this moment.

Because the American story has always been written not only by the extraordinary figures we remember, but by the countless ordinary people whose lives became part of something larger than themselves.

This article originally appeared in Constitution Daily on July 3, 2026.

There is an oversimplified story we often tell about the American founding that is both incomplete and, at this particular moment, deeply misleading. The Declaration of Independence is signed in 1776. A new nation is born. Liberty triumphs. The story ends.

History, of course, was far messier, and far more instructive.

The generation that declared independence quickly discovered that winning a revolution was not the same as sustaining a constitutional republic. The Articles of Confederation, remarkable for their moment, proved unequal to the demands of self-government. The promise of the Revolution required something more durable: stronger institutions, a constitutional framework capable of governing a free people, and a civic culture that could sustain both.

So the founding generation did something extraordinary: they began again. Eleven years after the Declaration, they gathered in Philadelphia to ask one of the most consequential questions in American history: What would it take not simply to win liberty, but to preserve it for ourselves and our posterity?

The Constitution was their answer.

And, yet, here too the story of our founding does not end.

The decades that followed were devoted to giving constitutional government a durable foundation. Americans established new national institutions, debated the meaning of federalism and individual rights, ratified the Bill of Rights, built courts and systems of public administration, expanded educational institutions, founded voluntary associations, and gradually developed the civic habits necessary to sustain self-government.

The founders understood something we too often forget. Constitutions create governments. People sustain them.

Nearly half a century later, Alexis de Tocqueville recognized what had made the American experiment so distinctive. He admired the Constitution, but he was equally struck by the habits, institutions, and associations that surrounded it. Americans formed associations for every conceivable purpose. They built schools, churches, newspapers, charitable organizations, town meetings, and civic societies. They solved problems together long before they expected government to solve them. These institutions taught cooperation, responsibility, compromise, and the everyday practices of citizenship.

Tocqueville understood that constitutional government depends on far more than constitutional design. In modern terms, he understood that it also depended upon what we call constitutional culture.

He warned that democracy could just as easily produce isolation as participation. Citizens might retreat into private life, becoming disconnected from one another and from the institutions that sustain freedom. A democracy could retain its constitutional forms while gradually losing the civic habits that gave those forms meaning.

His warning feels remarkably contemporary.

For much of our history, Americans have understandably celebrated the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights as extraordinary achievements. But those documents did not secure the American experiment on their own.

What secured it was generation after generation of Americans who accepted responsibility for strengthening the institutions, associations, and civic culture that allowed constitutional democracy to flourish.

That history has never felt more relevant than it does today.

America’s 250th anniversary invited us to remember the founding. I spent years working alongside remarkable colleagues across the country to ensure it became more than a birthday celebration. Through national coalitions, collaborative initiatives, and planning efforts, we sought to transform the anniversary into a once-in-a-generation opportunity for civic welcome, belonging, reflection, and renewal.

In many ways, we succeeded. Across the country, extraordinary educators, museums, libraries, veterans’ organizations, civic groups, historical societies, and community leaders created opportunities for Americans to learn, serve, celebrate, and reconnect. Millions participated. Countless acts of civic generosity unfolded in communities large and small.

Yet taken as a whole, the anniversary often felt fragmented rather than shared. Moments of invitation were real, but they were too often momentary and fleeting.

The more I’ve reflected on that experience, the more convinced I’ve become that we asked too much of collaboration and too little of institution-building. We relied on networks when we needed infrastructure. We coordinated when we should have been building enduring capacity. We celebrated thousands of remarkable local efforts without investing early enough in the shared institutions, philanthropic partnerships, and civic architecture that could have connected those efforts into something larger than the sum of their parts.

That realization has stayed with me because I have come to believe it points toward one of the founding’s most important lessons: great constitutional moments do not end with celebration. They begin with the work of building what comes next.

In that respect, I find an unexpected historical parallel.

The Articles of Confederation reflected a nation rich in ideals, talent, and local commitment, but one that lacked the institutional framework necessary for sustained collective action. The states were capable of remarkable things individually, yet too often struggled to act together as one nation.

America’s 250th revealed a different version of the same challenge. Across the country, extraordinary organizations accomplished extraordinary work. What we lacked was not creativity or commitment. We lacked sufficient shared infrastructure, sustained investment, and common purpose to transform thousands of individual efforts into a lasting movement for civic renewal.

That is not a criticism. It is a lesson. And it may be the most important lesson America’s 250th has to offer. The founders responded to fragmentation by building stronger institutions. We have the opportunity to do the same.

That is why I believe the decade and a half between the Declaration’s 250th anniversary this year, the Constitution’s 250th in 2037, and the Bill of Rights’ 250th in 2041 should be understood not simply as a sequence of commemorations, but as a national period of civic renewal.

At the National Constitution Center we call that project the Civic Decade.

Not because it is literally 10 years long—it isn’t (it’s actually 15 years long)—but because it represents a distinct era with a distinct purpose.

The Civic Decade is an invitation to treat this generation the way the founding generation treated theirs: as a moment not simply to celebrate our constitutional inheritance, but to strengthen the institutions, civic habits, and constitutional culture that will determine whether it flourishes for another 250 years.

Democracy has always been fragile. Self-government has always required work. Constitutions do not preserve themselves. Rights do not defend themselves. Institutions do not build and renew themselves. People do.

The question before us is not whether America will celebrate its founding. The question is whether we will use this remarkable sequence of anniversaries to leave behind a stronger constitutional democracy than the one we inherited.

That requires us to begin asking a different set of questions.

What would success actually look like?

For me, it would mean stronger civic institutions that more Americans visit, support, volunteer with, and trust. Museums, libraries, archives, schools, local governments, historical societies, civic organizations, courts, and places of constitutional memory should emerge from this period more vibrant than they entered it.

It would mean a national recommitment to civic learning—not only through major investments in K–12 education, but throughout American life. Civic learning should happen in classrooms, certainly, but also around dinner tables, in museums, libraries, faith communities, neighborhood organizations, and workplaces. We should recover the understanding that preparing children for citizenship is not solely the responsibility of schools. Families have always been our first civic institutions. Reviving a culture of civic parenting may prove one of the most important investments we can make.

It would mean rebuilding American civil society. More Americans participating in local organizations. More volunteering. More opportunities for neighbors to know one another. More places where disagreement is practiced with respect rather than contempt. At a time of growing loneliness, isolation, and polarization, rebuilding civic life is not only good for democracy. It is essential to human flourishing.

It would mean cultivating a richer constitutional culture defined not only by greater knowledge of our founding documents, but by deeper habits of curiosity, humility, civil dialogue, institutional trust, and shared responsibility.

And it would mean developing the courage to measure whether any of this is actually happening.

One of the projects I’m most excited to lead through my work at the National Constitution Center is helping define what success during the Civic Decade should look like. Not simply counting visitors, programs, or events, but asking more meaningful questions.

Are Americans more connected to civic institutions?

Are families talking more about citizenship?

Are young people receiving richer civic learning?

Are communities investing more deeply in the organizations that sustain democratic life?

Is civil society stronger than it was when this decade began?

This Substack is my attempt to think through those questions in public.

Together we’ll explore constitutional culture, civic learning, civic parenting, philanthropy, museums, civil society, institutional trust, civic infrastructure, the role of technology, and the ideas that might shape America’s next great chapter.

We’ll learn from historians, educators, constitutional scholars, technologists, philanthropists, institutional leaders, parents, and civic practitioners. We’ll celebrate promising experiments. We’ll acknowledge failures honestly. And we’ll ask, over and over again, what self-government requires of us now.

The founders did not leave us a finished form of government.

They left us the responsibility to keep building it.

The Civic Decade begins now.

I’m grateful you’re here.

Subscribe now

Share

Resources 

• “Short (and very long) term time capsules to be kept in Philly as part of America 250 celebrations,” Nick Kariuki for WHYY, July 3, 2026 

• “Reno family selected for America 250 time capsule ceremony in Philadelphia,” This Is Reno, July 13, 2026 

• “Local family participates in time capsule ceremony,” NBC10 Philadelphia, July 3, 2026 

• Civic Quest, National Constitution Center 

• Trivial Pursuit: Exploring America’s Story, National Constitution Center

Stay Connected and Learn More 

• Stay connected with Civic Parenting—follow, rate, and review the show wherever you listen.

• Questions or comments? Email podcast@constitutioncenter.org.

• Follow @ConstitutionCtr on social media, explore more activities and programs designed for families from the National Constitution Center, or subscribe to receive our family resources email newsletter. 

• Support our important work by making a donation today. 

⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate

Resources 

• Ben Sheehan, What Does the Constitution Say?: A Kid’s Guide to How Our Democracy Works (2021) 

• Ben Sheehan, Civics Made Easy, PBS 

• New Jersey State Dinosaur Hardosaurus foulkii

Stay Connected and Learn More 

• Stay connected with Civic Parenting—follow, rate, and review the show wherever you listen. 

• Questions or comments? Email podcast@constitutioncenter.org. 

• Follow @ConstitutionCtr on social media and explore more activities and programs designed for families from the National Constitution Center or subscribe to receive our family resources email newsletter.

• Support our important work by making a donation today. 

⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate 

Resources 

• Beverly Gage, This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History (2026) 

• “America Turns 250: A Guide to the Coming Festivities,” The New York Times (Jan. 22, 2026) 

• “America 250 Calendar: Ways to Celebrate the Nation Across the Nation,” The Wall Street Journal (June 6, 2026)

Stay Connected and Learn More 

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠podcast@constitutioncenter.org⁠⁠⁠ 

• Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr 

• Explore the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠America at 250 Civic Toolkit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

• Explore ⁠⁠⁠We the People⁠⁠⁠ for a deeper dive   

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate  

• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen  

• Join us at the ⁠⁠⁠museum⁠⁠⁠, attend an upcoming ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠live program⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or watch recordings on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

• Support our important work: 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate⁠⁠⁠ 

Justice Gorsuch and Nitze also discuss how stories can help children connect with the founding era, why it matters to introduce young learners to both famous and lesser-known figures from our nation's past, and how families can use America's 250th anniversary as an opportunity to deepen civic curiosity, strengthen historical understanding, and help prepare the next generation for the responsibilities of citizenship and self-government. 

Resources  

• Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence 

• National Constitution Center, Civic Story Hour with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and Janie Nitze 

• National Constitution Center, The Declaration of Independence 

• National Constitution Center, Family Learning Resources 

• National Constitution Center, Civic Quest, a new play-based family learning experience 

• National Constitution Center, NCC Trivial Pursuit: Exploring America’s Story (Bitesize) 

• Julie Silverbrook, “At 250, America Needs Civic Parenting, Not Just Civics Classes,” The Fulcrum (May 5, 2026)

Stay Connected and Learn More 

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠podcast@constitutioncenter.org⁠⁠ 

• Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr 

• Explore the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠America at 250 Civic Toolkit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

• Explore ⁠⁠We the People⁠⁠ for a deeper dive   

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate  

• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen  

• Join us at the ⁠⁠museum⁠⁠, attend an upcoming ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠live program⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or watch recordings on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

• Support our important work: 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate⁠⁠ 

Throughout the conversation, we examine how these small relational experiences help children build the psychological and civic muscles necessary for life in a constitutional democracy. We talk about the importance of teaching children that democracy is not built on unanimity, but on learning how to live, work, and solve problems together despite our differences. Together, we reflect on how families, schools, libraries, museums, and local civic institutions can work together to nurture the next generation of engaged citizens and strengthen the habits of self-government that sustain constitutional democracy. 

Resources 

• National Constitution Center, Family Learning Resources 

• National Constitution Center, Civic Quest, a new play-based family learning experience 

• National Constitution Center, NCC Trivial Pursuit: Exploring America’s Story (Bitesize) 

• Julie Silverbrook, “At 250, America Needs Civic Parenting, Not Just Civics Classes,” The Fulcrum (May 5, 2026) 

• Rick Hess, “What Is Civic Hope? And Why Should Schools Care About It?,” Education Week (March 17, 2026)  

• Lindsey Cormack, How to Raise a Citizen (And Why It's up to You to Do It) (2024) 

• Sarah Vacchiano, Civic EQ 

Stay Connected and Learn More 

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠podcast@constitutioncenter.org⁠ 

• Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr 

• Explore the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠America at 250 Civic Toolkit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

• Explore ⁠We the People⁠ for a deeper dive   

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate  

• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen  

• Join us at the ⁠museum⁠, attend an upcoming ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠live program⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠ or watch recordings on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

• Support our important work: 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate⁠ 

Resources 

• National Constitution Center, Family Learning Resources 

• National Constitution Center, Civic Quest, a new play-based family learning experience 

• Lindsey Cormack, How to Raise a Citizen (And Why it's up to You to Do It), (2024) 

• Sarah Vacchiano, Civic EQ 

Stay Connected and Learn More 

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠podcast@constitutioncenter.org 

• Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr 

• Explore the ⁠⁠⁠⁠America at 250 Civic Toolkit⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

• Explore We the People for a deeper dive   

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up⁠⁠⁠⁠ to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate  

• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen  

• Join us at the museum, attend an upcoming ⁠⁠⁠⁠live program⁠,⁠⁠⁠ or watch recordings on ⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

• Support our important work: 

⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate 

Civic Parenting is a special 10-episode series hosted by Julie Silverbrook, chief content and learning officer of the National Constitution Center, joined by Lindsey Cormack, author of How to Raise a Citizen, and Sarah Vacchiano of CivicEQ.

Each episode explores how those habits take shape in real life. From reading and storytelling to navigating disagreement, from family routines to community experiences, the series offers practical ways to connect everyday moments to the enduring principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. This is a series for parents, caregivers, educators, and anyone who believes that the work of citizenship begins at home.

Follow Civic Parenting in your favorite podcast app and join a national conversation about how we raise the next generation of citizens.