{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/article/mt-ararat-makes-textbooks-real-with-capitol-class", "Mt. Ararat makes textbooks real with ‘Capitol Class’", "2013-11-19", "2013", "2013-11", "Independent", "House", "ME", "Angus King", "K000383", "www.king.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Mt. Ararat makes textbooks real with \u2018Capitol Class\u2019\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n                \r\n            \r\n            \r\n            \r\n                \r\n                    By:\u00a0\r\n                    Darcie Moore\r\n                \r\n            \r\n            \r\n                \r\n                \r\n                \r\n            Tuesday, November 19, 2013\r\n            \n\t\n\r\n            \r\n            Teaching students the structure of the nation\u2019s government, teacher Sewall Janeway said he tries to make class special every year by finding a way to make textbook material come alive.\r\nThat is why he contacted U.S. Sen. Angus King\u2019s office in September.\r\nKing \u201ccame to\u201d\u00a0Mt. Ararat High School\u00a0on Nov. 7 with a virtual appearance via Skype \u2014 the online video-conferencing service.\r\nRecently, seniors in both Advanced Placement government classes gathered in the high school\u2019s Learning Commons \u2014 formerly the library, now transformed into a place that now combines the library and technology experience \u2014 to pepper King with questions about governance.\r\nKing answered, the conversation was recorded on both ends, and the exchange is now posted on YouTube where the two video streams play side-by-side.\r\nIt is a program King does called \u201cCapitol Class.\u201d Thus far, Janeway said, Mt. Ararat is one of only a few schools to participate.\r\nStudents asked King several questions, ranging from the difference between the jobs of governor and senator; the challenges and opportunities he\u2019s faced as an independent in a partisan Congress; how many bills he\u2019s sponsored and that process; how he was appointed to committees \u2014 Armed Services, Budget, Rules and Intelligence; and to weigh in on the direction of the Affordable Care Act and campaign finance.\r\n\r\n\r\nIsabella Leon of\u00a0Harpswell\u00a0said, \u201cEvery class we start out talking about the current events ... so we get a good sense of what\u2019s happening, and then relate it to what we\u2019re studying about the government.\u201d\r\n\r\n\r\nThe class has studied Congress and the presidency and just studied the Supreme Court.\r\n\u201cI\u2019m really happy we\u2019re talking about current events, just because it opens my eyes to what\u2019s going on \u2014 the different parties, too,\u201d Leon said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s kind of nice to talk about the governmental structure as well.\u201d\r\nJonah Levy of\u00a0Harpswell\u00a0planned to ask King about his committee work, which King answered in his introduction, so Levy asked King what work he had been doing on the Intelligence Committee.\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s only his first year and he\u2019s already got such a diverse set of issues he\u2019s dealing with,\u201d Levy said.\r\nEllison Etnier of\u00a0Harpswell\u00a0said he was surprised to hear King hasn\u2019t been approached by many lobbyists, \u201cand I was expecting a lot of people to be approaching him, especially as an independent who could potentially be swayed from one side to the other.\u201d\r\nLevy added that one would think that, as a newcomer to the Senate, lobbyists would want to influence him early on.\r\nConnie Hodge of Topsham asked King if he would run again for the Senate, and his response \u2014 that it is too early to be able to answer that \u2014 surprised Leon.\r\nHodge added that \u201cI feel like that\u2019s always on their minds,\u201d and as a politician he would always be working to garner the favor of his constituency.\r\n\u201cHe said it was like asking us if we knew what we were going to do after college,\u201d Leon said.\r\n\u201cI was very impressed with how quick on his feet he was,\u201d Janeway said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t say \u2018uh\u2019 or \u2018um\u2019 and he felt very loose and comfortable and interested.\u201d\r\n\u201cHe used a lot of vocabulary terms from our book, which is neat to have that brought to life,\u201d Leon said \u2014 terms like \u201coversight\u201d and \u201cconference committee.\u201d\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s one of the things about government. Some of what you learn in a textbook, I hate to say it, it\u2019s a little bit dry. But having (King) talk about it definitely made it more interesting because you see how it actually works,\u201d Etnier said.\r\nHodge said she almost didn\u2019t take the class but she is glad she did, \u201cbecause I\u2019m going to be 18 soon and so I\u2019ll get to vote so knowing all this stuff is going to make it a lot easier to decide which kind of things I want to vote for and understand what they\u2019re about on the ballot because there are a lot of complicated things.\u201d\r\nEvery year Janeway has a different group, sometimes highly charged, partisan groups he can barely keep from yelling at each other about issues.\r\nBut this year\u2019s class is focused on process versus arguing policy, he said, which is what the curriculum is about.\r\nWhile it\u2019s an off-election year, there\u2019s always something big going on; most recently the government shutdown and the Affordable Care Act debate and \u201cevery year there seems to be something we can latch onto and make the stuff that\u2019s in our textbook real,\u201d Janeway said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t fail.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/article/mt-ararat-makes-textbooks-real-with-capitol-class"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4584041200578213, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}