On Wednesday, October 28, facilitators from The Can We? Project at Waynflete will be at NHCS to lead our high school students and 8th graders through the first phase of a yearlong partnership.
Can We? usually works with a small cohort of juniors and seniors from each partner school. For North Haven, they have made an exception to include our entire high school and 8th grade.
What Is The Can We? Project
Launched in 2018, Can We? helps high school students across Maine build the communication skills they need to take part in a democracy as engaged citizens. Students practice dialogue across political and other differences and study the psychology of polarization and how American government is designed to work.
What Students Will Do
October 28 is the first phase. Across the year, students will return again and again to four questions:
Self-reflection: Who am I, what do I believe, and what has shaped those beliefs?
Perspective taking: Who are you, what do you believe, and what has shaped your beliefs?
Inquiry: What matters to us, what questions help us understand an issue, and which sources can we trust?
Creative collaboration: What can we understand together that none of us would reach alone, and is there something we can do about it?
Why the Whole High School
What does it take to disagree well with someone you will see at the store tomorrow?
On an island, that question is not abstract. Our students grow up together, and they will keep living alongside one another long after graduation. Bringing every high school student and our 8th graders into the same experience gives them a shared language for hard conversations, in class and beyond it.
The partnership is also designed to widen our students' circle. They rarely get to sit across the table from peers at schools throughout Maine. Can We? connects students from partner schools across the state, and we want our students to build those relationships, hear perspectives they would not meet at home, and bring them back to North Haven.
In a 2024 University of Southern Maine survey, 91 percent of Can We? participants agreed that their peers at school would benefit from the experience. Many thanks to Waynflete for making room for all of ours.
How You Can Help
After October 28, ask your student:
What is one thing you learned about how you listen?
Did anyone surprise you?
What question would you want to keep talking about?
To learn more, visit The Can We? Project at Waynflete.