The Manhattan High Civic Engagement group held an event on Feb. 21 to discuss the polarization of politics and work together to find common ground.

“It was kind of like a workshop format to try and educate our participants on how to effectively communicate over controversial issues,” sophomore Anvesha Sharda, a facilitator at the event, said.

The event was held in the MHS West Alumni Conference Room and was a “community conversation.” It was held under the theme “House Divided” and was co-sponsored by the Young Democrats and the Young Republicans. There were around 25 people there, including facilitators, according to Sharda.

The event used an online form to find the similarities and differences within each group.

“You go through and take this individual survey, so it almost sort of eliminates the areas of highest disagreement, you know, right off the bat,” Kent Hildebrand, economics and MATC U.S. history teacher, said.

The groups had to discuss their views to select resolutions for their topic.

“It’s called an issue guide and in the issue guide, there’s three different options on how to solve the issue,” Sharda said. “So our issue was, how do we…unite this divided society?” 

The groups then had to find common ground within their group.

“It was awesome, it was a lot of fun,” junior Jackson Byerly said. “Even though my group didn’t really agree on a lot of things, we had some really good discussions and a lot of people changed their mind on different things,… even I did too.”

The group plans on hosting another community event in the future.

“Our next community conversation will be April 18. We’ll be [working] in conjunction with the environmental club,” Sharda said. “It’s going to be an Earth Day-themed conversation.”