The author, Eric Lane, puts forward an ambitious proposal for fully integrating civic literacy into our schools.
Lane ends the article in this way: "America, unlike most of the world's nations, is not a country defined by blood or belief. Rather, it is an idea, or a set of ideas, about freedom and opportunity. It is this set of ideas that binds us together as Americans. That's why these ideas have to be taught. Our understanding and appreciation of them is how we grade our civic literacy. We are now failing, and heading toward what the philosopher Michael Sandel has called a 'storyless condition,' in which 'there is no continuity between present and past, and therefore no responsibility, and therefore no possibility for acting together to govern ourselves.' We need civic education to reverse this course."
5 comments:
I agree wholeheartedly that students should learn civic virtues in a comprehensive manner.
The problem is that it can be very difficult to separate out basic constitutional lessons from current political disagreements. While a good teacher and a good curriculum can separate out personal beliefs from what they teach, experience has shown that indoctrination rather than education can and does occur.
Just look at some of the examples the author uses: why Congress didn't curtail President Bush's Iraq and terrorism policies and the relationship between the First amendment and campaign finance reforms. These are highly contentious issues that may be difficult to teach objectively.
Anyway, my point is that I agree constitutional history should be taught, but it may not be as simple as it first appears.
Besides, everyone should have to go to that 7:30 am American Institutional History class. Some high quality learnin' took place there.
You should note that the author is writing for an unabashedly liberal publication, Utne, so the anecdotes you note are for his audience.
Part of his point (and many people's teaching stances) is that creating interesting and productive dialogue of diverse viewpoints is essential to a strong classroom community.
A problem I find is that people of different political stripes don't talk to one another or even listen to different viewpoints. The cable new channels reinforce the idea that people with different political viewpoints should shout at one another, and some people (the "sheep" you ranted about a while back) just accept viewpoints without thinking through reasons why they have those stances.
The proposal is not simple. If it were simple, it wouldn't be worth teaching, my friend.
QBN,
I agree with all of what you are saying on this subject. But....
Part of his point (and many people's teaching stances) is that creating interesting and productive dialogue of diverse viewpoints is essential to a strong classroom community.
Have you ever experienced this outside of a rare college class?
I certainly haven't. I went to a private primary school, a public junior high, a private high school, and two different public universities (quiet TGD, a lot of people go to college for seven years) and I can think of maybe two or three classes where there was a real dialogue between opposing political viewpoints.
Most kids in class, including me at the time, just sit there and absorb whatever the teacher says on politics. I vividly remember in junior high during an American History class when the teacher said "Republicans are more likely than Democrats to be corrupt because they generally are more pro-business."
Even at 14 years old I knew that was biased crap, but I didn't say anything because he was an authority figure.
I have trouble seeing how you can get kids of high-school age and younger to have a "productive dialogue"
I've experienced those type of classrooms many, many times. In fact, I create them. The more diverse viewpoints, the better the class usually is.
Unfortunately, many teachers and professors still subscribe to the banking method of teaching while loads of research shows that the lecture method isn't effective. Students learn and retain information by interacting with others, taking responsibility for their education, doing group work, and using writing as a mode of learning.
A lot of times, the best teaching is done when instructors' mouths are shut.
I have no doubt that you can and do create these types of classrooms in your college classes.
I have strong doubts that the kids in high school and below are capable of having that kind of give and take. And I think we both agree that civics should be taught much earlier than college.
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