Speaker 1: Pushkin. Imagine there's a place in our world where the
Speaker 1: known things go, or at least the people who are
Speaker 1: learning how to know all right, pleasurely into the flag
Speaker 1: of the United States of America. High School in northern
Speaker 1: New England early spring, late mud season, tulips, daffodils, spring
Speaker 1: sports general fine of four teams and had a lot
Speaker 1: of prom thing performances for the undoing Computer Science Lab
Speaker 1: Model u N prom and still more student announcements over
Speaker 1: the speakers. Leave of the love of John Dark. Please
Speaker 1: take up your draft and throw it away because we
Speaker 1: were clean in first tool, do a three and many tool.
Speaker 1: Pick up your trash. Please, let's clean this place up.
Speaker 1: We've come here to high school to clean up American politics,
Speaker 1: where the trash that needs picking up is a pile
Speaker 1: of lies. And it also it is just long to
Speaker 1: your raft there and make others up a Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Last Archive High School Edition, Part two, the second
Speaker 1: phase of our experiment and using high school students to
Speaker 1: find out what's true and what's not. Someone's got to
Speaker 1: do it, why not them? Last episode we conducted phase
Speaker 1: one of our experiment to solve the problem of lies
Speaker 1: in political ads. Our solution ask high school students to
Speaker 1: form juries and decide whether an ad is true enough
Speaker 1: to get posted on social media. We got this idea
Speaker 1: from Harvard Law School professor Jonathan Zittrain, and we tried
Speaker 1: it out in a big urban public high school outside
Speaker 1: of Boston over a single class session. Resounding success. But
Speaker 1: we wondered what if that was a one off? So
Speaker 1: we wanted to try it again on a much bigger scale.
Speaker 1: This time, we're stepping things up, meeting with forty students
Speaker 1: in two schools in two states over three days evaluating
Speaker 1: four ads. Got it. Forty students, two states, three days,
Speaker 1: four ads. Day one we met, everyone learned about political
Speaker 1: ads with them. Day two the students started fact checking.
Speaker 1: Over the weekend, everyone did homework. Monday, Day three was
Speaker 1: the big game day. The students from both schools met
Speaker 1: over Zoom for jury deliberations. The two states we chose,
Speaker 1: New Hampshire and Vermont, are right next door to one another.
Speaker 1: They've got lots in common, but they've also got striking differences.
Speaker 1: We started out in New Hampshire, a tiny state in
Speaker 1: northern New England. It's a place where the first presidential
Speaker 1: primary has been held for decades, so there are huge
Speaker 1: political stakes in this little state. It's a kind of
Speaker 1: place where the candidates will come, sit at a diner,
Speaker 1: talked to voters. Where in any election season political ads
Speaker 1: play on television and on radio. Non stock Perhapshire is
Speaker 1: a battleground state. It's not red, it's more purplish. We
Speaker 1: went to a knocked about little town population nine thousand.
Speaker 1: The town's called where Where Where. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: who's on first problem? White clavered houses, a lot of
Speaker 1: Democratic voters, also a lot of Trump flags and Biden
Speaker 1: sucks signs. We walked up to the high school Skirtland
Speaker 1: and I will be your tour guide. So this is
Speaker 1: the sivixth classroommate and obviously the APUs history. Quinn is
Speaker 1: a junior at John Stark Regional High School in where
Speaker 1: New Hampshire. She would not say this herself, but we
Speaker 1: got tipped off that she's kind of a polyglot. I
Speaker 1: speak Chinese, Japanese, English, French, a town allion, Spanish, Tagalog,
Speaker 1: a little bit of Korean and Vietnamese. Wow right, wow,
Speaker 1: quinns gave me in benatour in English. This hallway is
Speaker 1: kind of the ap hallway so that's where we have
Speaker 1: ap English, APUs history, and honor civics as well as
Speaker 1: regular civics, because it's a required course. John Stark is
Speaker 1: a sprawling brick and glass high school up on a hill.
Speaker 1: If you've been to a public high school with about
Speaker 1: a thousand kids in it anytime between nineteen fifty and
Speaker 1: the year two thousand, you can picture John Stark White
Speaker 1: Hallway's murals on the walls. The school is named after
Speaker 1: this guy, General John Stark, a revolutionary somebody. That's pretty
Speaker 1: much my extent of the knowledge I later discovered. John
Speaker 1: Stark is the guy who said live free or die,
Speaker 1: which is New Hampshire's motto. Anyway, Quince took us down
Speaker 1: to the cafetorium told us it was Chicken Patty Day.
Speaker 1: Everybody looks forward to Chicken Patty Day, I've heard. So
Speaker 1: I'm a vegetarian, so I don't know, but I've heard
Speaker 1: great things about it. So okay. So that's John Stark,
Speaker 1: our purple State School in New Hampshire, Live for or
Speaker 1: die baby for a blue state, we chose Vermont, New
Speaker 1: Hampshire's neighbor to the west, home of Bernie Sanders. If
Speaker 1: you draw a rectangle and then draw it diagonally a
Speaker 1: squiggly line through the middle. Vermont is on the left
Speaker 1: and New Hampshire is on the right, and that's how
Speaker 1: their politics work out too. Vermont has a Republican governor,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty much a lock for the Democrats in
Speaker 1: any national election, so national candidates rarely travel there. A
Speaker 1: Republican hasn't won the state since nineteen eighty eight, when
Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush beat Massachusetts Governor Michael Ducaucus. Campaigns
Speaker 1: do not spend money trying to win over Vermonters, and
Speaker 1: the ads that do play tend to be much more local.
Speaker 1: We finished up our tour with quins and jumped in
Speaker 1: the car. Who's time to drive across the Connecticut River
Speaker 1: in you're drawing that's quiggly line? Is that river all right?
Speaker 1: Soak it up? Soak up every last drop of New
Speaker 1: Hampshire you can. Recording six class periods and two schools
Speaker 1: over three days required a lot of driving between states,
Speaker 1: me plus all three of the last archives producers, Ben,
Speaker 1: Sophie and Lucy in teams of two. Thankfully, it's not
Speaker 1: a long drive from John Stark in where New Hampshire
Speaker 1: to Green Mountain Union in Chester, Vermont, and we made it.
Speaker 1: We have across the river here we go to Vermont. Yes, wow,
Speaker 1: so everything feels super different. So okay, the differences between
Speaker 1: New Hampshire and Vermont are in some ways so small
Speaker 1: that it's easy to make fun of state pride. I'm
Speaker 1: wide awake and warmer. We're past the cold river new sights.
Speaker 1: Still there are real differences. Vermont is very very liberal.
Speaker 1: New Hampshire is more conservative. And then there's the matter
Speaker 1: of the ice cream. What are maple creamies? Creamies are
Speaker 1: like a special kind of vermine soft served and I
Speaker 1: have to try that favored ones For the blue state
Speaker 1: end of our experiment, We've chosen Green Mountain High School
Speaker 1: in Chester, a beautiful, gleaming high school that sits on
Speaker 1: a hill. Every wall inside is covered with student art.
Speaker 1: Incredible edgy, thrilling student art. Like the high school we
Speaker 1: visited in New Hampshire, this one serves a mostly white,
Speaker 1: mostly rural community, farming towns a green Mountain. Two students
Speaker 1: volunteered to give us a tour around the place. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm Liam, by the way. Nate's a freshman and Liam's
Speaker 1: a junior. He's on the school baseball team plays second base.
Speaker 1: Are a Red Sox fan. I'm a Yankees fan. Oh no,
Speaker 1: but why my dad likes loss to like? There used
Speaker 1: to be lots to like about the Red Sox too,
Speaker 1: but now they stink. Anyway, we had our two schools
Speaker 1: in two states, with two different teachers. In New Hampshire,
Speaker 1: at John Stark High School, we're going to be going
Speaker 1: to Dan Marcus's ap us history class. And here at
Speaker 1: Green Mountain and Chester Vermont, we're going to be going
Speaker 1: to Melissa Palmer's eighth period Civics class. We're at their
Speaker 1: schools to get verdicts on four political ads from twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two to stage a kind of Civics Olympiad after
Speaker 1: the bell. I've told you a little bit about our
Speaker 1: two schools, John Stark in New Hampshire, Green Mountain and
Speaker 1: Vermont are actually the students have told you about their schools.
Speaker 1: Now I want to introduce you to their teachers. Melissa
Speaker 1: Palmer teaches Civics and history at Green Mountain. Her classrooms
Speaker 1: on the third floor. It's like a treehouse up there,
Speaker 1: the branches all but bursting through the windows. She got
Speaker 1: wonder woman stuff all over the place, Wonder Woman mug
Speaker 1: on the desk, Wonder Woman posters on the walls, signs
Speaker 1: that read I teach What's your superpower? And she does
Speaker 1: have a superpower. She's a genius teacher. When I first
Speaker 1: got to the classroom, she was trying to build up
Speaker 1: her student's confidence. They were nervous about this experiment. In particular,
Speaker 1: they were scared that at the end of it they
Speaker 1: were going to be meeting with students from New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: This is the way I always look at things. You're
Speaker 1: going to be working with students you don't know, yes,
Speaker 1: but are you ever going to see them again? People? Right,
Speaker 1: don't be shy, like, don't worry. Okay. Something important to
Speaker 1: note here, Melissa Palmer. Students at Green Mountain were mostly
Speaker 1: freshmen taking a required Civics course. Their counterparts in New
Speaker 1: Hampshire were ap history students, mainly juniors, some seniors. The
Speaker 1: Vermont kids were a little intimidated by that. Would they
Speaker 1: hold their own in this jury of peers? But that's okay,
Speaker 1: because if this spread nationwide, the classrooms might not be
Speaker 1: matched exactly. And I wanted to know in that case,
Speaker 1: would it still work we'll find out soon enough, but
Speaker 1: first let me tell you a little bit more about
Speaker 1: our new Hampshire teacher, Dan Marcus. He's got a giant
Speaker 1: facsimile of the four pages of the parchment Constitution on
Speaker 1: the walls of his classroom, and portraits of political philosophers
Speaker 1: along an ideological continuum. John Locke at one end with
Speaker 1: a sign that reads trust the People, and Thomas Hobbes
Speaker 1: at the other end with a sign that says trust government.
Speaker 1: In a minute, i'll tell you, guys your groups and
Speaker 1: really what you're going to be doing is you're gonna
Speaker 1: be charged with sort of a two step process. The
Speaker 1: first step is going to be to decide what your
Speaker 1: methodology is going to be. How are you going? Dan
Speaker 1: Marcus gives the impression of being more buttoned up than
Speaker 1: Melissa Palmer. He's a little bit reserved at first, but
Speaker 1: don't be fooled. It took a while for this to
Speaker 1: come out and talking with him, but it turns out
Speaker 1: that he writes and records songs for his students to
Speaker 1: help them study, like this one about the Constitution. Extra
Speaker 1: extra read all about seven articles of the CASSA. Two
Speaker 1: sons think about how generous This was of these teachers
Speaker 1: and their students to let us swarm into their classrooms
Speaker 1: with microphones and recorders and this whole crazy, intricate lesson
Speaker 1: plan and a section A in a new The Rates Congresses,
Speaker 1: Powers and Limitations. The more I got to know these teachers,
Speaker 1: the clearer it came to me that even though we'd
Speaker 1: come to these schools to teach something, ah, that was
Speaker 1: really happening was that we were learning how great American
Speaker 1: high school teaching can be. But it was time to
Speaker 1: get started first with a little fact checking warm up.
Speaker 1: How are you going to decide whether a AD an
Speaker 1: AD or you're AD the one you're going to ultimately
Speaker 1: work with should be something that Facebook or some other
Speaker 1: social media site should allow to be posted. A man
Speaker 1: attacked me in a parking garage, tried to stab me
Speaker 1: with an eight inch knife, but I carry a pistol.
Speaker 1: I fight back. That's an AD made by the NR
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen about gun rights in the Second Amendment.
Speaker 1: Just to be clear here for a minute, the stuff
Speaker 1: about guns, it's not abstract for high school students, or
Speaker 1: even elementary school students, even kindergarteners. It's not abstract for
Speaker 1: kids in any school in the country, given the plague
Speaker 1: of mass shootings. These kids can't vote, but the consequences
Speaker 1: of the political choices made by people who can vote,
Speaker 1: These students bear those consequences in these buildings, within these halls,
Speaker 1: underneath these desks. In mister Marcus's classroom, Lydia and Rose,
Speaker 1: two eleventh graders, were dubious about the n a ads
Speaker 1: claims did that woman kill someone? Because what she said
Speaker 1: was they tried to stab you with an eight inchike?
Speaker 1: Whose bay? And when did this happen? And She's like,
Speaker 1: but I was safe because I carried it, because I
Speaker 1: carry a gun. And if you carry a gun, you
Speaker 1: can also protect yourself from the nameless people who attacked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because who attacked her? One thing I was learning fast.
Speaker 1: Nothing gets past these kids. And if you live with
Speaker 1: high schoolers, you probably know what this feels like to
Speaker 1: watch them nail someone to the wall. As I'd been
Speaker 1: reminded in visiting Benji Cohen's class in our last episode,
Speaker 1: teenagers are born fact checkers, and I think correlation is
Speaker 1: not equal causation. That kind of sense, because someone wants gun, Okay,
Speaker 1: what would you check? You'd check to see if the
Speaker 1: policy is actually to take away your gun. Yeah. Day
Speaker 1: one was mainly this kind of stuff, just talking about
Speaker 1: facts versus claims. Day two we formed the student juries
Speaker 1: to judge ads from the twenty twenty two election season.
Speaker 1: We had two ads from New Hampshire and two from
Speaker 1: Vermont in both classrooms. The students in their four groups
Speaker 1: got right to it. The easiest to add to handle
Speaker 1: turned out to be a pretty straightforward issue ad about
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting. It was an ad from Vermont across America.
Speaker 1: Our voice is at stake. The threat to our democracy
Speaker 1: is real, but this is mt We're not about to
Speaker 1: give in. It's time to make your voice count with
Speaker 1: ranked choice vote, ranked choice voting, with ranked choice voting
Speaker 1: with Miss Palmer's students in Vermont. Charissa explained how her
Speaker 1: group picked out what parts to check. So we highlighted
Speaker 1: that it can strengthen our says it can strengthen our
Speaker 1: democracy with written choice voting, and that it's a simple
Speaker 1: reform and that it gives more voters, more choice and
Speaker 1: more voice. They got to googling. It's just like first
Speaker 1: doing an Internet search and trying to find like reliable
Speaker 1: sources to fact check it. They made a list of
Speaker 1: pros and cons of ranked choice voting, settling into the
Speaker 1: work of figuring out if the ad was fair. While
Speaker 1: they're slogging that out, let's move on to the official
Speaker 1: campaign ad of Kecia ram Hinsdale of Vermont Or, who
Speaker 1: is at the time running for Congress. Her AD's pretty
Speaker 1: much a love letter to the state. I came to
Speaker 1: the University of Vermont with a suitcase and found my home.
Speaker 1: Vermont is a place where we lift each other up,
Speaker 1: where we measure success not by how many cars you have,
Speaker 1: but by how many cars you have pulled out of
Speaker 1: a ditch. That's the Vermont Way. In Melissa Palmer's classroom
Speaker 1: in Vermont, Liam and Nate, the students who'd taken me
Speaker 1: on a tour, started going through the transcript of Hinsdale's
Speaker 1: ad line by line. Yeah, it's not claim, is it like?
Speaker 1: That's just a statement. There's one thing that was really
Speaker 1: cool to see is how thoughtful the students were about
Speaker 1: the sources they were using to check facts. I just
Speaker 1: lays your dough Vermont dot gov. It's one of the
Speaker 1: ones that miss Palmer gave to us. People about Miss Palmer,
Speaker 1: suggestive for us so I think that's a trusted Also,
Speaker 1: it looks like it has a lot of information. Valuating
Speaker 1: the reliability of sources got really interesting, especially in the
Speaker 1: groups that had to judge. In New Hampshire ad about abortion.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most restrictive abortion bands in New
Speaker 1: Hampshire history. There are no exceptions if the fetus can't survive,
Speaker 1: no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest, and doctors
Speaker 1: could face up to seven years in jail. Learn more
Speaker 1: at SUNUW abortion band dot com. In mister Marcus's class Lydia,
Speaker 1: a junior let a deliberation about whether anything in this
Speaker 1: ad violated the standards of students were creating. It's weird
Speaker 1: to think about, like saying, telling adults to not cyberbule
Speaker 1: each other, it's kind of funny. Most of the students
Speaker 1: found it easiest to debate fairness. It took a bit
Speaker 1: of urging to get them to dig into whether the
Speaker 1: claims and the ads were true. Brandon, a friendly sophomore
Speaker 1: in Vermont, realized his group would need to figure out
Speaker 1: what the New Hampshire abortion bill actually said. But what
Speaker 1: we were able to find out is we could just
Speaker 1: look at the actual writing of the bill itself and
Speaker 1: then see if these are actually in here, and if
Speaker 1: they're not, then that will be our fact checking. Right,
Speaker 1: thanklets seems who do we want to fact checks? This
Speaker 1: not the most responsible human being. But I probably could
Speaker 1: get on Mike and beers. Yeah, I'll do five through seven.
Speaker 1: I'll fact check those and then you guys can one,
Speaker 1: you can do three or four. You guys can choose
Speaker 1: your Pappas assigning his friend's homework. I love that. Another
Speaker 1: ad from New Hampshire was an attack on Chris Pappas,
Speaker 1: a Democrat running for reelection and the first openly gay
Speaker 1: man from the Granite State to serve in Congress. This
Speaker 1: was an attack ed put out by a conservative group
Speaker 1: called American Action Network. It worked by time Congressman Pappas
Speaker 1: to the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. First, Nancy
Speaker 1: Pelosi said she'd raise taxes. Now She's coming for whatever
Speaker 1: you've got left, doubt pay for trillions in new spending.
Speaker 1: Pelosi wants the government to spy on nearly every American
Speaker 1: bank account looking for new money to spend your deposits, payments,
Speaker 1: bank balance. Under Pelosi's plan, the government monitors them call
Speaker 1: Chris Pappas, tell him to stop Pelosi's spending spree and
Speaker 1: keep government out of your bank account. The Vermont students
Speaker 1: were sort of floored by the intensity of New Hampshire politics.
Speaker 1: More vitriol, more national focus, and a lot less let's
Speaker 1: help your neighbor pull their truck out of a ditch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Nancy Pelosi said she would raise taxes. So that's
Speaker 1: something that you would be able to bactcheck right. All right,
Speaker 1: what else? Now she's coming for whatever you've got left
Speaker 1: to help pay for trillions in new spending. Pelosi wants
Speaker 1: the government to spy on nearly every American bank account.
Speaker 1: Is that a claim? Yeah. Once the students in Vermont
Speaker 1: figured out what those claims were, the next step was
Speaker 1: trying to figure out where those claims came from and
Speaker 1: how to check them. The students in New Hampshire we're
Speaker 1: doing the very same thing. One of the forces list
Speaker 1: is pretty frequently is Fox News and then YouTube says
Speaker 1: that's why we raise up authoritative voices, including sources like
Speaker 1: CNN and Fox News. There's like the doc client because
Speaker 1: that's a secondary right and you're in history class, you
Speaker 1: know primary sources. What would be sore, trying to find
Speaker 1: out what what was Pelosi talking about when she said
Speaker 1: this thing? What would be a farmer's It would be
Speaker 1: the best primer her. They found a phone number for
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi's office in Washington. I feel like we should
Speaker 1: call it Zion. Colin would be fine, Colin would be okays.
Speaker 1: They decided to give Nancy Pelosi's office the chance to
Speaker 1: answer the charges leveled in the ad They found the
Speaker 1: tiny corner of the classroom with cell service dot Mister
Speaker 1: Marcus borrowed his phone value from you us to this
Speaker 1: menu and English. Please stay on the line. If you
Speaker 1: would like to voice your opinion, share feedback, or pass
Speaker 1: along a personal story to Speaker Pelosi, please press one.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Congress in action pleas two. If you have
Speaker 1: questions about Speaker Pelosi's policy physician, please press three. If
Speaker 1: you are to get the latest news on the issues
Speaker 1: that are report to you, please visit our website at
Speaker 1: www dot speaker dot com. Mister Marcus was listening in
Speaker 1: maybe Hi, UM, I'm a student doing a project on
Speaker 1: um what Nancy Pelosi meant in a political advertisement? And
Speaker 1: I just have a few questions. UM sure if it
Speaker 1: was the political advertisement. Our government office wouldn't be the
Speaker 1: best place to call. It would probably want to call
Speaker 1: the campaign office. Because of how BADIG rules epic rules,
Speaker 1: we can't really answer or to talk about the campaign
Speaker 1: size of things. Um, do you have a number for
Speaker 1: the campaign office? I can't legally direct you. The poor
Speaker 1: young staffer who finally answered the phone, he couldn't have
Speaker 1: been much older than the students themselves. He was patient
Speaker 1: with them, but he couldn't really help. I'm happy to
Speaker 1: talk about her policy more definitely, or redirect you to think. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it said she um was spending money and we
Speaker 1: were just wondering where that spending money was coming from
Speaker 1: that we saw in the ad. You'd have to be
Speaker 1: a little more. I think that she'd had a lot
Speaker 1: of press teaments on life but redirected her website um
Speaker 1: in terms of like specific films that she's passed and
Speaker 1: things like the Omnibus. But um it was saying that
Speaker 1: there was lots of that she was raising taxes and
Speaker 1: then taxes for like homeowners and things like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to think on behalf of the speaker
Speaker 1: on any particular issue because I'm not an official took
Speaker 1: person or the speaker, but like she's put statement on
Speaker 1: every funding bill online. But I think that'd probably be
Speaker 1: the best place. Oh well, it turns out it's hard,
Speaker 1: maybe even impossible to check facts directly with elected officials
Speaker 1: if you're a high school student. I think, aren't they
Speaker 1: supposed to answer questions? Though? I think I just learned
Speaker 1: about the civics, so they're supposed to answer questions, like
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be able to call no. That's an
Speaker 1: actual thing in the I think it was Hobbes and Locke.
Speaker 1: They said, like, if you ever have a problem with
Speaker 1: your government, you should be able to take it upon
Speaker 1: yourself to like talk to the government and get those
Speaker 1: answers of the question. We all died a little in
Speaker 1: that moment, I guess, except that it was so great
Speaker 1: to watch them go for it. Plus she cited Hobbes
Speaker 1: and Locke. By the way you were thank you was
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, you're awesome to talk to a
Speaker 1: representative who wouldn't give me any answer. That was day
Speaker 1: one and day two. They were good days, great days.
Speaker 1: The kids dug In really put in the work. It
Speaker 1: was easy almost to lose sight of what it was
Speaker 1: all for. But I don't think the students last sight
Speaker 1: of that you could tell how seriously they were taking it,
Speaker 1: thinking about what if this actually worked, what if this
Speaker 1: really became a national program. Everyone went home with assignments
Speaker 1: over the weekend. Monday, they'd be back for jury service
Speaker 1: after the break Monday Day three game day, where the
Speaker 1: students in Vermont and New Hampshire would meet together by
Speaker 1: zoom for jury duty in breakout rooms and together they'd
Speaker 1: come up with their verdicts on four political ads, two
Speaker 1: from each state. Can you describe for me after you're
Speaker 1: wearing and why you're wearing? Oilver At John Stark High
Speaker 1: School in New Hampshire, in Dan Marcus's classroom, the junior
Speaker 1: named Jackson was dressed for success. I'm wearing a suit
Speaker 1: today for the sole purpose of this podcast. I want
Speaker 1: to look good big camera. Guy. Jackson's on the volleyball team.
Speaker 1: Last season, they hadn't won a single game, and this
Speaker 1: was the first day of the new season. But there
Speaker 1: was something of a different vibe over in Vermont at
Speaker 1: Green Mountain Union, where Melissa Palmer had written on the
Speaker 1: board four and a half days till vacation, sixty and sunny.
Speaker 1: I'm going swimming. Give me my swim shorts. The kids
Speaker 1: in Miss Palmer's class were a little nervous about meeting
Speaker 1: their New Hampshire peers. Brandon was fidgeting in his seat.
Speaker 1: I don't want this, Brandon, You totally can do this.
Speaker 1: I have complete and utter faith in you. A lot
Speaker 1: of pressure. It's not the math Olympiad, but it felt
Speaker 1: big and a little scary to everyone, including me. I
Speaker 1: was in Vermont. Most of the rest of the production
Speaker 1: team was in New Hampshire. We connected by zoom. I'll
Speaker 1: just say you, guys, I've met everybody now in both classes.
Speaker 1: I'm Jillipour. We are the last Archive producing team. We
Speaker 1: are so grateful to you and your teachers for doing this,
Speaker 1: and everyone here and Chester Vermont is very excited. So
Speaker 1: we'll start off by learning about the classroom on the
Speaker 1: other side of the river. At the start, there was
Speaker 1: just a lot of shuffling and stammer as we got
Speaker 1: the laptops hooked up to zoom. Then Quince the Polyglot
Speaker 1: spoke up. Okay, hi, um, we are John Stark, We're
Speaker 1: located in We're in New Hampshire and this is the
Speaker 1: a push history class and we're excited to hear what
Speaker 1: you guys have to say and collaborate with you. Awesome,
Speaker 1: Thank you all right Chester, do you guys have someone
Speaker 1: to volunteers. We're a green Mountain. We're located in southern Vermont.
Speaker 1: We're seven through twelve, and we're pretty small. I guess.
Speaker 1: Once the students got into their breakout rooms, one for
Speaker 1: each of the four ads, it was hard to hear,
Speaker 1: and it was hard to see, and everyone was feeling shy.
Speaker 1: Hot take zoom sucks. Yeah, can you till the screen
Speaker 1: down a little? Yeah, I cannot hear it. But then
Speaker 1: miraculously everyone sort of figured it out. I mean, these
Speaker 1: kids have been through like two years of a pandemic.
Speaker 1: They know how to use zoom. In the end, it worked.
Speaker 1: Some groups went out to the hallway, some went into
Speaker 1: a little teacher's kitchen. They found quieter places to zoom from. Hi, guys, sorry, um,
Speaker 1: we didn't really hear your names. Brandon from Vermont helped
Speaker 1: get the conversation started with Lydia's group in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: They were talking about the abortion ad. I'm Brandon, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm Lydia. I'm Madison I'm Phoebe, I'm Natalie. Nice to
Speaker 1: meet you, guys. They worked out a way to decide
Speaker 1: who would do what, using the tried and true method
Speaker 1: of every schoolyard okay, wait who okay, um, Shobe's gonna
Speaker 1: be a poor started to get to know one another,
Speaker 1: overcoming that high school shyness, they got really into comparing
Speaker 1: their states. The kids from New Hampshire had notice how
Speaker 1: different the Vermont ads were from the ones that aired
Speaker 1: in their state. Wait, who seems more calm. There's literally
Speaker 1: like there's a sign outside, like two houses down from
Speaker 1: mine that says F Joe Biden and F anyone who
Speaker 1: voted for him, and it's like thank you. So it's
Speaker 1: it's intense, and this town, specifically sol is hostile. The
Speaker 1: Vermont kids weren't familiar with this hostility. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: you could say, like different areas of the states are different,
Speaker 1: but I mean where we are, we're pretty chill. No
Speaker 1: one really cares. It's like people think what they think
Speaker 1: and there's nothing really about it. That must be so nice.
Speaker 1: But Brandon and Lydia's group also got down to business together,
Speaker 1: talking about the abortion ad, one of those super intense
Speaker 1: New Hampshire ads. Remember, these jurors aren't trying to decide
Speaker 1: if the ad is good or bad. They aren't dealing
Speaker 1: with tone. They're just trying to answer one question. Is
Speaker 1: this ad true and enough to be posted on social media.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most restrictive abortion bands in New
Speaker 1: Hampshire history. There are no exceptions, so we should start
Speaker 1: off with a straw pole. Probably see where we all
Speaker 1: at with the if we should put it online or not.
Speaker 1: So raise your hand if you think it should be online,
Speaker 1: like it should be posted, because that's is the third
Speaker 1: person in your group raising their hand. Yes, he is,
Speaker 1: you just can't see it. So oh, so that's unanimous.
Speaker 1: So everyone's raising their hand. Sweet. That maybe makes it
Speaker 1: a little bit easier. Initially, everyone from both schools in
Speaker 1: the straw pole, so the pro choice ad could go
Speaker 1: up on social media. Here's Brandon again. I thought it
Speaker 1: should be online because after all the research I and
Speaker 1: my group did, we came out to it all being true,
Speaker 1: Like every claim was true. So we're like, okay, it
Speaker 1: doesn't violate anything. It's not like spreading misinformation. It was
Speaker 1: all true at the time. So that's why I think
Speaker 1: it personally should be online. Then when Lydia summarized New
Speaker 1: Hampshire's thinking, things got a little trickier. Okay, um, we
Speaker 1: found that, similar to what you guys found, that most
Speaker 1: of it or all of it was true at the
Speaker 1: time that it was created. The one thing that we
Speaker 1: did find was that in the AD they said that
Speaker 1: there were no exceptions made for rape or incest for abortion,
Speaker 1: and at the time that the AD was made it
Speaker 1: was true. But after the policy was looked over by
Speaker 1: the House, they made exceptions for rape and incest as
Speaker 1: an addition to the bill. So it was all true
Speaker 1: at the time. So what we proposed was that in
Speaker 1: order to fix that, you just put a date on
Speaker 1: the AD, So you just say that it was made
Speaker 1: in February of twenty twenty one or November of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, and then that that would be okay. What
Speaker 1: do you what do you guys Vermont guys think of that?
Speaker 1: Now that you've said that, I actually agree with that,
Speaker 1: and I think they should have a date. They did
Speaker 1: a second straw pole. They were in unanimous agreement that
Speaker 1: the ad should not run as is at a date though,
Speaker 1: and the ad would be good to go This was
Speaker 1: decidedly not the thinking over in the meeting of the
Speaker 1: two Nancy Pelosi Chris Pappas groups, where everyone over the
Speaker 1: weekend had found they just weren't able to verify much
Speaker 1: of what the ad alleged. It had these authoritative looking
Speaker 1: citations for each of its claims, but the citations were
Speaker 1: in fact too vague to back up any claim at all.
Speaker 1: Doubt pay for trillions in new spending. Pelosi wants the
Speaker 1: government to spy on nearly every American bank account looking
Speaker 1: for new money to spend. What do you guys think,
Speaker 1: I don't think the ash rod begins. There's what the
Speaker 1: ex said, the ad was not very true. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: similar to what we said. That one seemed to be
Speaker 1: a clear no. Next up, the ranked choice voting ad
Speaker 1: from Vermonts had done a ton of research on ranked
Speaker 1: choice voting, of course she had. So there's no real
Speaker 1: evidence we can find for other than just bait claims,
Speaker 1: just like the ad itself. No heart evidence one way
Speaker 1: or the other, more of an opinion, really, But that's
Speaker 1: all right, and the ad stood, so we'd come to
Speaker 1: the end of it. Really. Forty students, two schools, two states,
Speaker 1: four ads, Somehow the four juries had come up with
Speaker 1: four different verdicts. The ranked choice voting ad fine to
Speaker 1: go up, the abortion attack ad only with a date stamp,
Speaker 1: the New Hampshire ad attacking Nancy Pelosi and Chris Pappas,
Speaker 1: jury says no. Finally, Kacia rom Hinsdale's campaign ad, the
Speaker 1: love Letter to Vermont. I'm roscostchusic. I'm a junior and
Speaker 1: we found that the ad is true enough to be
Speaker 1: posted on social media. My name is Liam O'Brien. I'm
Speaker 1: also a junior, and my group also agreed that this
Speaker 1: ad should be posted and it should be allowed on
Speaker 1: the internet. I'll say this, it was a lot more
Speaker 1: fast paced than actual jury service, where you waited around
Speaker 1: all day to see if your name is called. This
Speaker 1: jury day was something between speed dating, taking sat in
Speaker 1: a ballroom dancing class, frenetic and intellectually and physically exhausting,
Speaker 1: but also thrilling. The verdicts were in two yeses, one
Speaker 1: no and one yes. But with a condition faced with complexity,
Speaker 1: these students answered with complexity. Jury dismissed. Jurors, you are
Speaker 1: free to go to the cafetorium. We had one last
Speaker 1: question for the kids. We thought this experiment worked, but
Speaker 1: what did the students think? More to the point, did
Speaker 1: they think this should happen? Should really be a thing
Speaker 1: where high school students serve as jurors in this way
Speaker 1: make decisions that will be binding to social media companies? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm Brandon, you have something I've already Well, I guess yeah,
Speaker 1: we should. This is a good idea because like we're
Speaker 1: learning about it right now, so it's fresh and our memories,
Speaker 1: so like this would be a good way to like
Speaker 1: determine if an at should go up because we're like
Speaker 1: learning about what's good and what's bad about that because
Speaker 1: you're in a sixth class, like because you guys are
Speaker 1: now experts on ads. Sure, Okay, I thought I think
Speaker 1: it's a good idea too, because I think since we're
Speaker 1: so young, some people haven't like picked a side that
Speaker 1: they want to be on, or like some people don't
Speaker 1: have opinions on these types of things, So it's kind
Speaker 1: of just like a it's more of like a fact
Speaker 1: based thing instead of bias. But also it could be
Speaker 1: sort of the opposite, like if you have kids who
Speaker 1: don't know a lot, but their parents are like extremely
Speaker 1: far fetched one way. It's like they're probably gonna go
Speaker 1: that way, so they could be unbiased, but it also
Speaker 1: could be extremely biased. I feel like just because how
Speaker 1: young we are and how we maybe don't know a
Speaker 1: ton yet about these kind of things. Brandon, despite being
Speaker 1: nervous and skeptical of this whole thing at the beginning,
Speaker 1: shining by the end. He thought the design of the
Speaker 1: jury selection would correct for any possible bias back to
Speaker 1: the point where the kids could be biased. That's why
Speaker 1: we should do it like we're doing it now, where
Speaker 1: there's multiple kids different schools, so then it would be
Speaker 1: a very low chance if everyone is the same bias.
Speaker 1: So if one person is maybe biased, then there's going
Speaker 1: to be rejection from the other people, which would cause
Speaker 1: a debate, and then maybe it would clear out and
Speaker 1: have a more productive response. What do you think about
Speaker 1: the fact that you guys don't vote yet for the
Speaker 1: most part, does that make you better or less able
Speaker 1: to assess these things? I think that makes us better,
Speaker 1: not that high schoolers don't have a motivation to want
Speaker 1: certain ads on the internet or not, but because we
Speaker 1: can't vote yet, it wouldn't be any personal gain from
Speaker 1: having certain parties ads be seen more than others. Like
Speaker 1: the fact that we can't vote. I think that means
Speaker 1: that this is a great opportunity to guess involved in
Speaker 1: the political process in some kind of way, since we
Speaker 1: don't have an actual voting kind of involvement at this point.
Speaker 1: So I think it's pretty cool. Yeah, I think it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool too. And I couldn't have said it any better.
Speaker 1: Who better to do this than these kids? Experiment complete
Speaker 1: except for over in New Hampshire had turned out. The
Speaker 1: kids had figured out it was mister Marcus's birthday. Who
Speaker 1: knew there would be so much singing in this episode?
Speaker 1: Not me. I also learned that mister Marcus had once
Speaker 1: written a song about kids voting, high schoolers and their
Speaker 1: civics obligations. It's a riff on Taylor Swift's song Lover
Speaker 1: to leave the campaign signs up until November. This is
Speaker 1: our country, we make the rules. Here's my theory about
Speaker 1: why this worked. It worked because of the excellence of
Speaker 1: public education, one of the last great democratic institutions, a
Speaker 1: cultivator of civic mindedness. Public school teachers are dedicated public servants.
Speaker 1: Public school kids are future citizens. So fair warning. Facebook, Twitter, TikTok,
Speaker 1: whoever you want your political odds checked. America's high school
Speaker 1: kids are ready for you, America's future voters. The Last
Speaker 1: Archive is written and hosted by me Jill Lapour. It's
Speaker 1: produced by Sophie Crane, Ben Natt of Haafrey and Lucy Sullivan.
Speaker 1: Our editors are Julia Barton and Sophie Crane, and our
Speaker 1: executive producer is Mia Lobell. Jake Gorsky is our engineer.
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Amy Gaines, original music Mathias Boss and
Speaker 1: John Evans of Stellwagen Symfinett. Our research assistant is Mia Hazra.
Speaker 1: Our full proof player is Robert Ricotta. Many of our
Speaker 1: sound effects are from Harry Janette Junior and the Star
Speaker 1: Jennette Foundation. The Last Archive is a production of Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: If you love this show, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus,
Speaker 1: offering bonus content like The Last Archivist, a limited series
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Speaker 1: If you like the show, please remember to rate, share,
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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm Jill Lapour.