ONGOING CONCERN OVER CIVICS

In 2011, the Carnegie Corporation of New York released an update to a 2003 report. The update is entitled Guardian of Democracy: Civic Mission of Schools.¹ It re-emphasized the findings of the earlier report and provides support to the claims this blog made early on about the many problems facing our civics instruction across this land. While the report expresses these problems in a variety of ways, let me share a summary paragraph that captures the challenges:

It is the current crisis of America that great civic exertions are required of a divided people. Our bonds are strained, our civility has worn thin, and our sense of common purpose has weakened, just as the need for cooperation on large challenges grows urgent.²

As this description suggests, civics education is simply not imparting enough information about the government and political affairs, not imparting enough skills concerning political interactions, and not encouraging enough of those dispositions that both motivate participation in the political process and be of a moral bent when considering such participation. The report suggests that a viable civics program would want students to:

• be informed and thoughtful
• participate in their communities
• act politically
• have moral and civic virtues

Each of these is more fully explained and somewhat justified in the report. My concern is that most of this work, while reasonable and useful, lacks in being firmly ensconced in a thought-out theoretical base. In fact, most of it can be described as commonsensical. The problem with that is the approach does not address the deep seated social and political conditions that have led us to the problems we face. The closest the report gets to identifying the societal sources of the problems is stated in an introductory statement in which they write:

Those who blame our democratic shortfalls on a media failing its responsibilities, the proliferation of money in politics, and politicians serving narrow interests rather than the common good are not wrong – all of these are very real threats to American democracy. But all three of these threats, and others, would be ameliorated by a more knowledgeable and engaged citizenry.³

Much of this blog has been dedicated to describing and explaining these problems.

I have made the argument in this blog that one of the reasons our civics efforts have fallen short has been that, as a nation, we have embraced the mental construct I have called the natural rights construct. While I don't expect these nationally known and respected organizations, such as the Carnegie Corporation of New York, to keep up with this blog (or to give it much credence), the actual conditions that reflect our adoption of a construct that glorifies the the individual should be acknowledged, since this development stands in the way of accomplishing that organization's stated goals. For example, the goal of having students exert civic action at the community level is highly hampered by the more individualistic and narcissistic orientation too many of our youth exhibit.⁴ These problems need to be addressed head on and they need to be recognized as conditions that reflect culturally defined world views that are readily shared among our youth and adults – including too many teachers. In short, the sources of these problems are profound and daunting and dancing around them will not do.

Having expressed my view of a shortcoming, let me state that I feel overall that the efforts of the Carnegie group – which reflects a very large alliance of civics education organizations – have been useful and positive. There are very influential individuals who are involved with this group and I can readily recommend that interested citizens would do well to look up the publications this group has been issuing along with those of the different organizations making up the alliance. A good place to start is the site: http://www.civicmissionofschools.org/the-campaign/guardian-of-democracy-report . This site is posted by a council of interested citizens that is chaired by the Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor, former Supreme Court justice, and the Honorable Lee Hamilton, former member of the US House of Representatives. Just to list a few of the many reputable organizations under this alliance, there are the American Federation of Teachers, the American Historical Association, and the National Council for the Social Studies.

1Gould, J. (ed.). (2011). Guardian of Democracy: Civic Mission of Schools. Philadelphia, PA: The Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. See Internet site: http://civicmission.s3.amazonaws.com/118/f0/5/171/1/Guardian-of-Democracy-report.pdf .

2Ibid., p. 9.

3Ibid., p. 5.

4Twenge, J. M. & Campbell, W. K. (2009). The narcissism epidemic: Living in the age of entitlement. New York, NY: Free Press.