AMERICAN CREED — citizen power
PROJECT BACKGROUND
PBS launched the ongoing American Creed initiative in 2018 with a documentary that asked: What does it mean to be American? The feature-length film and an accompanying collection of PBS LearningMedia shorts have been viewed by more than a million Americans. The series of American Creed documentary shorts—stories of innovative leaders working to realize their own visions of foundational American ideals—is continually refreshed and continues to be viewed and discussed in high school classrooms around the country.
“You don’t have to be an extraordinary person to do extraordinary things.” –Jasilyn Charger
A forthcoming American Creed PBS series of half hour episodes follows young leaders—“extraordinary, ordinary” people—who appeal to ideals like freedom, fairness and opportunity as they seek to address what they see as the greatest challenges facing their communities and the nation. The stories of these young adults and how they respond to turbulent times will interweave with dialogue between them, guided by Stanford University professors David M. Kennedy and Condoleezza Rice. Drs. Rice and Kennedy come together from their different perspectives in order to explore the American ideals these young leaders share in common, and illuminate differences in outlook and approach.
A NATIONAL EDUCATION CAMPAIGN
In addition to viewing and discussing American Creed films in class, high school students nationwide will be contributing to a national public media project engaging their communities in exploring how the ideals articulated in America’s founding documents can inspire place-based local action in turbulent times.
The national American Creed Youth Media Challenge, a public media publishing platform coordinated by KQED Education with ~25 partner PBS stations around the country, will guide high school educators to lead their students in publishing standards-aligned essays responding to variations on three basic prompts:
What are America’s foundational ideals?
What are the obstacles to realizing those ideals?
How might we overcome those obstacles?
Teacher trainings engaging educators around the country are conducted by the National Writing Project, the Youth Media Challenge’s curricular design and training partner. Public media stations around the country will be invited to spotlight stellar media compositions in their markets and co-present intergenerational screening+conversation events. This will contribute, community by community, to national reflection and action organized around a year-long semiquincentennial celebration marking the 250th anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence.
VIDEOS
Meet some of the young leaders whose stories high school students view and discuss before creating and sharing media of their own:
To preview the forthcoming PBS Series, view this 10-minute sample reel: