Recently, the Woodside We the People team competed in the We the People National Invitational. Fourteen schools from across the country presented and answered challenging follow-up questions on topics related to citizenship and the Constitution. Twenty three students competed at the regional level in the fall of 2021, and twenty of them chose to continue to the national level in the spring of 2022—culminating in the recent competition. Last year, Woodside ranked 4^th in the Northeast Indiana District and 9^th in the nation. This year,  Woodside ranked 1^st in the Northeast Indiana District and 6^th in the nation.

Students put in long hours, revised papers for months, challenged each other with critical thinking questions, and coordinated in teams of three to four to come up with the best answers to questions that, quite frankly, would challenge any college student. Unit One (of six) debated the fine points of Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke while Unit 6 discussed whether civic virtue could be achieved through self-interest “rightly understood” as was theorized by James Madison and discussed by Alexis de Tocqueville.

These students represent, as one judge remarked, the hope that we put in future generations.