When the History Club decided to continue holding public forums this year, they knew they wanted to continue providing a space for students to practice debate and enhance their knowledge of current events.
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“Last year, [Mary Frances Forbes] had a public forum [about] the environment… and debriefing with a whole bunch of people. We were inspired by that idea,” History Club President Elena Sallee said.
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Continuing that legacy, the club also wanted to change the model by expanding the subjects covered. However, at their first forum on Jan. 22, they found that leaving topics open-ended made conversations unstructured.

“It kind of just jumped from one topic to another at random. We wanted it to just be easier to understand and follow,” Sallee said.
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History Club decided to address this on their D-day micros, where members vote on which current events to bring to the forum.

“Obviously, there’s a lot of material right now and things that people want to talk about, so we just kind of bounce ideas off each other. Typically, we narrow it down to three or four really good ones,” History Club sponsor Ms. Mary Huddleston said.
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Before opening the forums to all upper schoolers, the History Club first held a private one as a trial run to prepare for the unexpected.

“Since we do have very differing opinions in History Club, what’s going to happen if there is a really bad disagreement and we need to step in as the representatives of the club?” Ms. Huddleston said.

The preparation helped establish the forums as a regulated space where all viewpoints could be heard without things getting out of hand.

During the most recent forum in room H267 at 12:40 p.m. on April 2, focusing on artificial intelligence and the economy, junior Shattuck Adams saw the benefit of civic discussions.

“In a world where people generally feel afraid to talk about big topics… and people online [are] set into echo chambers… I really love that at a young age, people are allowed to express themselves and learn from different points of view,” he said.

Sallee kept discussions on track by calling “order” when multiple students chose to jump into the debate at the same time.

Other attendees, like freshman Kayla Kirchner, came mainly to listen.

“It’s kind of fun to be entertained while I eat food,” Kirchner said.

But for Ms. Huddleston and the History Club as a whole, the stakes go beyond lunchtime entertainment.

“It’s more important than ever to be able to speak about and disagree about issues and find the common will of people to come together as a group with a common goal of bettering the general community – not just ‘what I want is the best’,” Ms. Huddleston said.