So what does that mean for this year-long commemoration of the founding of our nation? What parallels can we draw from these yearly ceremonies that take place on college campuses throughout the country?

The ceremonies themselves do, in fact, commemorate. We celebrate the rewards of long nights of study, thoughtful dialogue about big ideas, and the internalization of complex procedures and formulas. Yet, as students cross the stage, a degree now in hand, a new season commences. Moving the tassel from the right to the left side of my cap was a symbol to those in attendance, and to myself, that a new chapter had begun.

In a similar way, I hope that 2026 does not simply serve as a commemoration of our nation’s 250th birthday. But, like commencement ceremonies imply, a new chapter for its citizens. Don’t get me wrong, I am just as excited to celebrate America250 as I was to throw my cap into the air, but I am also anxious for what is next.

2026 has the potential to usher in a new chapter filled with fresh insights and a rejuvenated sense of purpose for the preservation of our constitutional democracy. It can serve as an inflection point where we don’t just commemorate America250, but commence America250+.

There are a lot of ways that we can do this. America250+ is not confined to a particular course of action. It’s not defined by a particular field, region, or political persuasion. America250+ is a future-oriented mindset that sees commemoration as a pathway to commencement.

At our organization, Thinking Nation, we see our call to action as bettering the space we already occupy: history and social studies education. We want to leverage the study of the past in ways that can better our collective future. In order to do this, we think we need to re-evaluate our approach to history education in American classrooms. We want students to engage with history in a way that centers their own agency and empowers them as thinkers and doers. We are not satisfied with students leaving classrooms where the measure of their success is defined by the strength of their memory.

For our America250+ initiative, we are calling for a new minimum standard in history education, one where thinking is the minimum. We are striving to raise the floor for every classroom and what is expected of every student.

To do this, we’ve identified seven critical components of a history classroom where thinking is the minimum output for all students. To cultivate an engaged citizenry, we advocate for a history education that meets seven criteria:

These are not added benefits to a core subject area. These are the new minimum. By definition, history is a discipline that equips students to explore and answer historical questions. It must be inquiry-driven. The toolbelt to do this is historical thinking and robust literacy. When students engage in the study of the past this way, they are empowered to ask and answer robust questions, making classrooms student-centered and relevant. But this type of environment only produces systemic change when teachers are data-informed and collaborative. These components are critical if we want a history education to be the citizen-equipping field that it has the potential to be.

Classrooms marked by these attributes facilitate an atmosphere critical to civic thriving. Take Cabrillo Middle School in Ventura, CA—one of Thinking Nation’s partner schools.

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Our mission is to pull together conversations and streams of work from across the country and across many different types of institutions into a shared forum, to improve coordination, growth, and collaboration in the present renaissance of civic learning. We’re aiming primarily to support educators (including staff, teacher educators, parents, and others) because we believe that when educators learn more about effective approaches to civic learning, they’ll be more empowered to support their students in their particular contexts.

There’s no one right way to do civic education, but some ways are better than others when it comes to preparing learners to participate in a constitutional democracy. Civic learning in the United States ought to support free inquiry and civic agency rather than rote learning or obedience, and ought to emphasize a commitment to pluralism and constitutional government. Experiential learning is particularly impactful, as research has shown. We’re not promoting civic education as a good in itself, but as a means of building a healthy civic culture to sustain and renovate our constitutional democracy.

We’re living in a time of political polarization, and the field of civic learning — which, after all, inescapably includes learning about politics, government, and ideologies — is hotly contested by practitioners coming from different ideological standpoints. Civic education is also the subject of scrutiny and critique from outside political actors, some of whom espouse overtly anti-democratic, i.e. authoritarian, views.

It is our intention to share a broad spectrum of substantive, pro-democratic (note the small d) perspectives to represent our community of civic educators. Some posts may be controversial, but we hope that they will all be useful food for thought. And if you wish to offer an alternative viewpoint or counter-argument, we encourage you to do so with a collegial, thoughtful comment!

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At the end of the day, we as civic educators are all working toward a shared goal. We all benefit from supporting each other’s work, from helping colleagues to incorporate more civic learning into their work, and generally from sowing seeds to grow a healthier civic culture instead of building silos or gatekeeping.