A Crucial Element of Democracy

This is a blog by Robert Gutierrez ...
While often taken for granted, civics education plays a crucial role in a democracy like ours. This Blog is dedicated to enticing its readers into taking an active role in the formulation of the civics curriculum found in their local schools. In order to do this, the Blog is offering a newer way to look at civics education, a newer construct - liberated federalism or federation theory. Daniel Elazar defines federalism as "the mode of political organization that unites separate polities within an overarching political system by distributing power among general and constituent governments in a manner designed to protect the existence and authority of both." It depends on its citizens acting in certain ways which Elazar calls federalism's processes. Federation theory, as applied to civics curriculum, has a set of aims. They are:
*Teach a view of government as a supra federated institution of society in which collective interests of the commonwealth are protected and advanced.
*Teach the philosophical basis of government's role as guardian of the grand partnership of citizens at both levels of individuals and associations of political and social intercourse.
*Convey the need of government to engender levels of support promoting a general sense of obligation and duty toward agreed upon goals and processes aimed at advancing the common betterment.
*Establish and justify a political morality which includes a process to assess whether that morality meets the needs of changing times while holding true to federalist values.
*Emphasize the integrity of the individual both in terms of liberty and equity in which each citizen is a member of a compacted arrangement and whose role is legally, politically, and socially congruent with the spirit of the Bill of Rights.
*Find a balance between a respect for national expertise and an encouragement of local, unsophisticated participation in policy decision-making and implementation.
Your input, as to the content of this Blog, is encouraged through this Blog directly or the Blog's email address: gravitascivics@gmail.com .
NOTE: This blog has led to the publication of a book. The title of that book is TOWARD A FEDERATED NATION: IMPLEMENTING NATIONAL CIVICS STANDARDS and it is available through Amazon in both ebook and paperback versions.

Friday, September 1, 2017

BEGINNING A PLANNING SESSION

In the last posting, this blog reviewed a list of fallacies that are used in rhetorical efforts.  They are not necessarily used every time a speaker engages in rhetoric, but experience shows the temptation, on the part of politicians, salespeople, lawyers, or other persuaders, to use them is formidable. 
The list consists of appeal to ignorance, appeal to authority, appeal to popular opinion, association fallacy, attacking the person, begging the question, circular argument, false causation fallacy, false dilemma/dichotomy, illogical conclusion, slippery slope, and syllogism fallacy.  Each was described and an example of each was given.
          There are other fallacy types.  They include overstate one’s premise of a position as the determining factor of the case and lay the burden of proof on those who are questioning a policy position.  Some of these types are similar one to another, but each can be distinguished from the others.
          And with that, this writer will begin a promised set of postings in which he will, in real time, report on an attempt to develop a unit of study.  The topic for that unit is foreign trade and that trade’s effect on employment opportunities.  This is a legitimate topic under the concerns of the mental construct (or social philosophy), federation theory – the construct promoted by this blog. 
This inclusion is justified by the fact that foreign trade since the 1970s has had much to do with the elimination of high paying manufacturing jobs that has stricken what is generally described as the “rust belt” and other manufacturing centers around the country.  This has affected those workers in that their status as economic actors or as political entities within the polity have been highly compromised.  For many, the changes have taken place at a time in life that disallows them to improve their statuses.  This is a genuine equality issue.
Beyond the conditions at the individual level, what has also developed is a shifting of national income away from workers toward the entrepreneur class or to those who have high levels of capital accumulation.[1]  In addition, that trend has accelerated:
A new Pew Research Center analysis of wealth finds the gap between America’s upper-income and middle-income families has reached its highest level on record.  In 2013, the median wealth of the nation’s upper-income families ($639,400) was nearly seven times the median wealth of middle-income families ($96,500), the widest wealth gap seen in 30 years when the Federal Reserve began collecting data.[2]
While this quote refers to wealth, the gap reflects the shifting of income toward the upper-class.  Here are a few more statistics:  the median income – median meaning half of those measured fall above and half below – for the middle fifth of income earning households rose a mere 13% between 1970 and 2014 – an average rise per year of just under 0.3% – and a lot of that increase was due to the influx of women workers during those years.  Overall median income rose 0.3% between 2000 and 2004, while those of Canada and Great Britain rose circa 20% during those same years.[3]
Therefore, the current condition offends federalist values as described and explained in this blog.  In turn, foreign trade with its consequences has been a significant contributing factor.[4]
          Hopefully, the reader agrees with this short rationale.  Assuming he/she does, this posting continues with the planning process.  As a reminder, the writer – henceforth referred to as the developer – has identified the solo source of information he is using in this demonstration.  That is Edward Alden’s book cited above.  He will augment this by using readily available sources of information such as Wikipedia.
          The planning begins with identifying an insight that can be derived from a reputable source such as a book by a legitimate writer like Alden, from news accounts from legitimate news sources like the New York Times, or from a legitimate study such as those developed the Pew Research Center. 
          Once identified, the insight is thought of and a lesson is imagined that instructs the essence of the insight.  Insights are deemed worthy for consideration by evaluating its power (the numbers of people affected), its meaningfulness (the quality of its effect on people’s lives), and its relevancy given the students being taught.  The developer will make comment on these qualities as he introduces each insight. 
Instruction for given lesson can be didactic (dispensing of information) or interactive in which students engage in a discovery activity.  The latter will be favored.  Each insight – during this development – will not be introduced in any given order, but as they become known to the developer.  Remember, this account is shared on a “real time” basis and the developer presently does not know how this effort will work out. 
The attempt here will be to give the non-teacher reader a sense of what a teacher does when preparing a lesson plan – a lesson plan that goes beyond just reviewing what the textbook offers next.  In addition, this demonstration is to introduce an instructional approach to civics which this blog has entitled historic-based dialogue.
          The first insight is as follows:  Displaced workers who have lost their jobs to workers of other countries cannot follow those jobs to those other countries.  There are three reasons for this inability.  There are language barriers, cultural barriers, and, compared to what their lifestyles demand, depressed wages.
          A second insight is:  Along with competition emanating from imported goods and foreign producers, there is also competition factors relating to technology that further add to the disadvantages of US workers.  Specifically, the introduction of computers and all related technologies have proven to further assist shifting jobs abroad and to introduce automation domestically.  While both are hurtful to US workers, it is foreign competition that is most detrimental in that it physically takes jobs away.
          A third insight is:  Agreements among nations that have very detrimental effects on the availability of jobs in the US have been the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).  Currently, another potential agreement is the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).  NAFTA was agreed to in 1993 and WTO in 2003.  TPP is still under negotiation and President Trump has drawn the US out of what, to date, had been agreed.  In addition, NAFTA is presently under renegotiation talks. 
The supporters of these agreements have argued they create new jobs; lead to higher wages; and will make available greater diversity of consumer goods.  Opponents argue that they send jobs elsewhere; decrease wages; and increase inequality.  The developer would add another benefit; these agreements have led to lower consumer prices.
          To start the thought process in developing daily lesson plans, the next posting will take up this first set of insights and begin formulating a lesson for each that determines what students will be instructed and what they will be called upon to do.  This will be a short paragraph or two that summarizes what each lesson will be.


[1] Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2014).

[2] Richard Fry and Rakesh Kochhar, “America’s Wealth Gap between Middle-Income and Upper-Income Is Widest on Record,” Fact Tank, December 17, 2014, accessed on August 31, 2017, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/17/wealth-gap-upper-middle-income/ .

[3] Edward Alden, Failure to Adjust:  How Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy (Lanham, MD:  Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2016).

[4] Ibid.

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