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 29, 2017

OPINIONS AND ARGUMENTS

With the last posting, this writer completed his review of content which he will use in the development of a unit of study for a civics high school course.  That course, at least in Florida, is entitled American Government.  It is a semester course and shares the senior year, social studies requirement with another course, economics – each is a half credit.  This blog has been, in real time, going through the various steps a teacher might take in developing a unit.  The topic of this demonstration is foreign trade and how that trade affects the availability of jobs in the US.
Previously, this blog identified a potential course outline – its list of units in order of presentation.  To remind the reader, here is that outline:
         The individual – short term interests vs. long term interests
         The family – the effects of divorce
         The neighborhood – responsibilities toward problem children
         A small business – treatment of employees
         A labor association (such as a union) – efficiency and quality issues vs. worker interests
         A large corporation – product safety
         A local government (either city or county) – zoning or racial/ethnic divisions
         Law enforcement agency – judicial rights applicable to an accused
         White House – leadership that advances social capital
         Congress – the extent that money (donations) is influential
         The courts – the role of interpreting constitutional principles as expressions of social capital
         Society during wartime – special demands on citizenship
         International associations – levels of interdependence between nations
As the reader can see, each unit is listed by stating its main area of concern (e.g., Congress) and a related issue that, if studied, would target addressing a social capital related issue.  This blog has made the claim that federation theory is primarily focused in advancing social capital[1] and civic humanism.[2]  Therefore the above issues are judged to reflect related concerns of these societal qualities.
The current unit being developed was seen to potentially be logically inserted in the “large corporation” slot or the “international associations” slot.  The decision was made to situate it with the latter issue or, as the last unit of the course.  The course, as a semester course, lasts eighteen weeks.  There are thirteen units which means at least four of the units can be two weeks in length, while the remaining units would each be one-week long.  The extra week would be reserved for administrative purposes.
As pointed out in a previous posting, this demonstration is introducing a new instructional approach the developer calls historic dialogue.  Overall, this instructional strategy progresses through the course by working through the following development:  discussion-argument-debate.  As this unit under discussion is the final unit of the course, it is assumed that students would be at the debate level.  This posting, though, will describe briefly each of these stages – two in this posting and the last one in the next posting.
Discussion stage, at the beginning of the course, simply has students expressing their opinions concerning the issues the content highlights.  So, for example, in the second unit, if the teacher uses the identified issue, divorce, the teacher would bring up a suggested policy change in the divorce laws – possibly making it more difficult to secure a divorce. 
Perhaps the old state of New York standard can be discussed in which divorce was only granted if one of the parties engaged in an extra marital affair.  This was changed in 2010 to allow for “no-fault” divorces.  Given the divorce rate is presently at 40 to 50 percent nationally, and all the disruptions that causes, should the divorce laws change and become more stringent.  This could make for a spirited discussion.
At this point, the purpose would be to get students comfortable with expressing an opinion allowing for little to no criticism.  Students could just express what they think without having to defend their positions or, if they do, briefly.  A historical study of New York’s law could accompany this discussion and be beneficial as it would expose how law can affect family relations.  Also, the discussion is limited to one option:  should the old New York law be reestablished?  Yes or no.
The next stage is argumentation.  Here the student, who is now hopefully comfortable with expressing opinions, is further encouraged to engage in an argument.  The focus now shifts in having students, in their consideration of an issue, entertain two or more options.  The question becomes:  which of the two or three policy options should be implemented?  These can be policy positions or legislative bills (or a part of a bill) or suggested actions.  Class arguments can be conducted with the teacher being highly conscious of detecting illogical arguments such as the fallacies this blog reported on several postings ago.[3]
The object is for students to begin building argumentation skills.  This calls on a regimen of critiques aimed at improving student skills and is spurred by hearing, understanding, and applying critical evaluations of their arguments.  Students should be, during this stage, instructed on the basic components of a sound and meaningful argument.
Soundness is composed of applying the demands of the various components that make up a sound argument as identified by Stephen Toulmin’s model.  That model is composed of a conclusion, supportive factual information (datum statements), warrant statement(s), backing of a warrant statement(s), qualification(s), and reservation statement(s).[4]
Meaningfulness reflects how qualitatively the argument relates to federalist values and how many people are affected by its provisions.  So, for example, if a policy affects the equality status of millions of people, that is meaningful.  Students, in the experience of this writer, tend to lack an appreciation on how policies can affect citizens, especially if the issue involved does not directly affect them.  Teachers should strive to get their students to become more sensitive to these effects.
This ends this initial description of the instructional strategy this unit will implement.  In parting, the reader should consider that to this point, this account has briefly reviewed the first two stages of the historic dialogue approach to teaching civics.  What remains is the third stage, debate.  That will be the topic of the next posting.



[1] This blog, using the writing of Robert Putnam, defines social capital to mean a societal quality characterized by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.

[2] Civic humanism is defined as a collective bias which holds that we, as citizens, are in a partnership in this polity.

[3] See posting, “Fallacy Types,” August 29, 2017.

[4] See posting, “Toulmin’s Elements of a Logical Argument,” August 22, 2017.

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