LOOKING AT THE CIVILITY QUESTION

As it has been stated in this blog:  this blog assumes that civics education has a responsibility to promote civility.  While this might be questioned in some quarters, the position here is that not only do schools, including public schools, have this responsibility, but that they are not meeting it.  This and the following postings will expand on this position.

By its nature, civility deals with values; i.e., normative questions.  This brings up several areas of interest:  how should the normative questions of citizenship and civility be handled in American classrooms?  Is the whole notion of imparting a view of civility a legitimate role for civics teachers to play?  If so, given any legitimate concern over indoctrination that Americans might have, what is the best method for presenting such lessons?

An interesting episode of political theater took place early in President Obama's presidency.  He offered a “beginning of the school year” message that was to be made available to schools around the country.  A clamor arose.  Was this an attempt by the government to impose a political message on school age children? 

Of course, such developments must be judged against the political climate of a given time.  But the underlying concern was an undue governmental influence on the political and civic beliefs of its citizens.  Despite the apparent theatrics of this interchange between the President and his detractors, this concern over government overreaching into domains of personal life or attempts at indoctrination are real and ongoing concerns.

The question of whether civility is a legitimate topic for civics education might be a touchy one for some. When one delves into issues of civility, one roams to normative questions:  what is proper and improper behavior?  Do public schools have the responsibility to impart “appropriate” values?  If so, what are those values and from where should they originate?

This whole question of values education deserves a lengthy treatment and this blog will touch on it again, but here, a general observation is that schools, even public schools, do have a responsibility to deal with the normative questions related to civility.  They have a role even if they do not see themselves as having one.[1]  Schools take up a large portion of children’s lives.  To suggest that schools will not have an effect is foolish and to believe that effect should not be responsibly planned for is a professional dereliction.

Back in the 1960s, a set of scholars who attempted to influence what was taught in schools felt that their role was not to totally ignore values questions in the classroom, but to present them in the form of personal value statements[2] or of resolving value dilemmas.[3]  These approaches garnered a bit of popularity at the time and many accompanying instructional materials were sold to or for teachers and students across the country. 

Unfortunately, neither approach met with lasting success.  One apparent reason for the limited tenure as highly regarded instructional strategies was the overall cultural environment in which they were issued.  As this blog has argued, the nation was in the throes of institutionalizing a natural rights view of government and politics.  “Do your own thing” was the prevailing motto of the day and the proposed curricular offerings did not address this cultural drift.

All in all, these strategies did not meet with much success and they have generally, through the years, been abandoned.  What remained was an almost total abandonment of handling values issues in the classroom, at least in a thoughtful fashion.

This left a vacuum that has been filled by two sources.  One has been the all-pervasive media and its implied values.  The other has been the young people themselves.  This latter source has often played out in the context of a youth culture becoming ever more pervasive, especially in large urban comprehensive high schools.[4]  The result:  a highly narcissistic and self-absorbed youth population.[5]

Are Americans suffering from undue levels of incivility?  Robert D. Putnam,[6] among others,[7] found worrisome levels of uncivil behavior among the American public.  These scholars are not alone in this finding or concern.  Other sources, both professional social scientists and popular media reports, echo his message.  Public Agenda, in 2002, reported:  “Most Americans surveyed in a study released today say rudeness is on the rise in our society and 41 percent admit they too are sometimes a part of the problem.[8] 

Similar reports date back to the 1990s.[9]  But the 1990s or, for that matter, 2002, has been a long time ago.  Are things better today?  A 2013 study found:  70 percent of Americans saw incivility as a national crisis, and on average, Americans encountered social interactions that they considered uncivil 2.4 times daily; 43 percent expected to experience incivility within 24 hours, and 50 percent reported ending a friendship due to uncivil behavior.

Summarizing this research:  “Civility in America continues to erode and rude behavior is becoming our “new normal,” according to the fourth annual study on Civility in America:  A Nationwide Survey, conducted by [a] global public relations firm … .”[10]

Then, a few years ago, comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert staged a rally in Washington D. C. whose main message was a call to restore civility to this nation’s political discourse.  The rally, described by the New York Times as “the enormous crowd, which stretched from the Capitol almost to the Washington Monument”[11] was covered live by C-Span.  In short, the rally hit a responsive chord.  And then there were the presidential campaigns of 2016 with physical violence becoming part of the expected occurrences. 

To end this account of incivility, here is a telling, contemporary statistic:  56% of all fatal traffic accidents involve at least one of the drivers exhibiting aggressive driving – better known as road rage.[12]

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[1] The Academy Awards winner of best picture (awarded February, 2017 was Moonlight.  The film is the story of an inner city, predominately African-American school in Miami (Liberty City).  Some of the scenes depict what goes on in the public school that the characters attend.  That depiction is accurate and demonstrates what happens when a school does not take an active role in instilling civic values – what this blog has called social capital.

[2]  Louis E. Raths, Merrill Harmin, Sidney B. Simon, Values and Teaching (Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co., 1966).

[3] Donald W. Oliver and James P. Shaver, Teaching Public Issues in the High School (Boston, MA:  Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966).

[4] Lawrence Steinberg, Adolescence, (New York, NY:  McGraw-Hill, 2008).

[5] Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement.

[6] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling alone:  The collapse and revival of American community. 

[7] Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen,William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton, The Good Society, (New York, NY:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1991).

[8] Public Agenda, Aggravating Circumstances: A Status Report on Rudeness in America, Public Agenda, 2002, http://www.publicagenda.org/files/aggravating_circumstances.pdf .

[9] A review of this literature includes the following: Concerned Educators Allied for a Safe Environment (CEASE). The Effect of Violence on Children’s Lives (Information Sheet # 10). New York: Teacher College Press, 2000; Gest, T. and Pope, V. (1996, March 25). Crime time bomb. U. S. News and World Report. pp. 28-36; Ellis, B. E. (1996, June/July). Why kids are ruining America. George. pp. 96-98 & 128; Newsweek. “The Rap on Rap.” (October 9) (2000): 58-65.  This is just a small sample.

[10] Weber Shandwick, “Civility in America 2013:  Incivility Has Reached Crisis Levels,” Newsroom, (2013):  http://www.webershandwick.com/news/article/civility-in-america-2013-incivility-has-reached-crisis-levels AND A FOLLOW-UP ARTICLE Weber Shandwick, “Civility in America 2014:  Forecast Bleak but with Glimmer of Hope for Millennials,” Newsroom, (2014):  https://www.webershandwick.com/news/article/civility-in-america-2014-forecast-bleak-but-with-hope-for-millennials .

[11] Sabrina Tavernise & Brian Stelter, “At Rally, Thousands – Billions? - Responded,” New York Times (New York, NY), October 30, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/us/politics/31rally.html?_r=1&hp .

[12] NBC News, “Road Rage,” NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, July 14, 2016.

THE CIVIC PROBLEM IS A CIVICS EDUCATION PROBLEM

This blog has renewed its efforts to report on the state of civics education.  Early in the history of the blog, this writer presented such a report.  He feels an update is in order.  The conclusion here is still the same; that is, schools have not been sufficiently successful in their efforts to teach the youth of this nation how to become democratic/republican citizens.

The overall quality of the nation’s citizenry is better than what one should expect, given the lack of successes experienced in the classroom.  But one is always somewhat uncertain; how many poor citizens can a nation sustain and still function sufficiently well, especially in a democracy?  With that in mind, one should be able to expect much from its school system and its civics education curriculum.

To contextualize this criticism of civics education, the finding that schools are deficient in terms of civics education is easily lost in the deluge of reports that points out the lack of success in all areas of education.  While different reports vary somewhat, the US ranks about seventeenth in its schools’ success rate when compared to other national systems.[1]  That systemic reality, in and of itself, makes any efforts in civics daunting. 

To this point, this blog has reported on the success rate of schools in imparting governmental/political knowledge, encouraging its students to engage in the political process, and on some of the skills one needs to count on to engage successfully, such as consistent thinking.  What will be looked at next are those aspects that reflect dysfunctional attitudes in relation to social capital.[2]  This blog has set social capital as an overall goal for civics education and that, by necessity, prescribes that certain attitudes be promulgated.  What are those attitudes? 

In addressing this question, certain facts are deemed relevant.  The following citation from the Washington Post, from a few years ago, contains a familiar message.

More than a third of conservative Republicans now say Obama is a Muslim, nearly double the percentage saying so early last year. Independents, too, are now more apt to see the president as a Muslim:  Among independents, 18 percent say he is a Muslim, up eight percentage points.[3]

To a civics teacher, this report is comparable to a science teacher hearing that 20% of the population believes that an outbreak of a dangerous flu is caused by evil spirits or that disease is the product of supernatural elements instead of the spreading of certain microbes in our environment.  It reflects more than a lack of knowledge or a disinclination to get involved.  It reflects an attitude that can only be described as the antithesis to social capital. 

To keep this regrettable belief about President Obama in context, one can “Google” the number of people who think President George W. Bush, of an opposite ideological persuasion, had an active role in either instigating the 9/11 attacks or was consciously unwilling to stop them to further his plans to initiate a war with Iraq.  It also makes the 18% figure in the above citation a conservative number.

One can safely speculate that many who think President Obama is a Muslim will probably not think President Bush is a mass murderer.  Since there is a lack of overlap between these two segments of the population, one can only wonder how much over the 20% figure the actual percentage is that represents people who harbor such counterfactual “knowledge.”  This is easy to chalk up to the “crazies out there.”  But 20% or more of 320 million people is a lot of people.

When people believe unsubstantiated conclusions that undermine the legitimacy of a president, one needs to question whether the nation’s schools are educating them sufficiently well, especially when it comes to knowledge concerning their government and politicians.   Further, one needs to question the attitudes and values that encourage or enable such conclusions.

And here is where this review takes a turn.  Attitudes and values are central to the next metrics of good citizenship under consideration; i.e., civil behavior.  On a practical level, parents and teachers should and mostly are concerned with the extent to which we live in a civil society.  After all, should not civics education and social studies in general be about giving the young the knowledge and skills to be pleasant and constructive citizens?

The assumption here is that civics education should promote a citizenry disposed to helping one another.  Different people might have differing views on this question.  As stated earlier in this blog, some people just don’t believe schooling – and especially public schooling – should be about instilling values and attitudes.  That chore belongs to parents and maybe the church.  If one feels this other way, then one does not agree that civics’ goal should be promoting social capital.

Many television pundits, early in the financial crisis which began in 2008, speculated that the burdens associated with this downturn would result in great changes in social behavior.  The nation would be less materialistic, less narcissistic, and more inclined to save money, or so they said.  Yet dire economic downturns are not usually coupled with more responsible attitudes taking hold.

This latest extreme downturn, to a milder extent (at least, milder to date), mirrored the reaction in the Great Depression.  In the 1930s, the world saw the rise of nationalist movements that culminated in a world war.  Today, across Europe and the US, as reflected in the last election (2016), one sees a rise of similar nationalist/populist sentiments.  The questions presently being considered are:  how far will such sentiments grow and how much will globalism take a beating among the populations of the Western world?

As for increasing the savings rates of Americans and their becoming more empathetic, what does the data show?  The media currently reports that savings rates by Americans have increased,[4] although the level of debt is still very high and savings rates cannot be considered high (circa 5.5%).  And perhaps these changes will lead the citizenry to become more empathetic and, in turn, a more civic minded people.  Time will tell, but so far there are no signs of this happening. 

Unfortunately, as of this writing, economic challenges often lead to divisiveness and extreme politics as was noted above.  One can judge whether the current level of political discourse is more civil or not.  And to add to the mix, our economy has improved greatly in the years of Obama’s second term, and we are now reverting to the more self-centered mode of economic behavior that characterized the American public prior to the financial collapse. 

All of this – the connection between economic woes and political behavior – has a backdrop.  Starting in the 1990s, there was a sense that social behavior was becoming too uncivil.  This sense was reflected in the writings of social commentators across the political spectrum.

Citizens in general seemed concerned over the low levels of civility being manifested in contemporary American life, ranging from the lack of social etiquette to outright criminal behavior.  Commentators ranging from Hillary Clinton on the left, to Michael Novak on the right, expressed such sentiments.[5]  A lot of the behavior one saw in the last presidential election should give concern.

It stands to reason that if teachers and parents were charged with promoting among their students or children a disposition toward civil behavior,[6] a broad-based concern among these adults would have developed and they would have called for action that addressed this perceived lack of civility.  In addition, academics from the field of social education would also have voiced focused commentary over this situation.

Instead, there seemed among these practitioners, scholars, and even parents to be little written or discussed that indicates any central consideration for these conditions.[7]  Of course, incidents such as the Columbine school shooting and the shooting at Sandy Hook caused a great deal of concern over the short term, but there does not seem to be a sustained professional response from educators to any lack of civility that many in the rest of the scholarly community see as plaguing the nation.

Increased public outcries seem to be directed toward many issues, but to date, civility is not one of them.

Recently, this writer had a conversation with a prominent government official of a major American urban area.  The question was asked about how things were in his jurisdiction.  He said crime was drastically down, but the big problem was traffic.  Having a bit of knowledge of that area, it is the opinion of this writer that that urban area’s major problem is a lack of civility.

That opinion was substantiated by a recently published study that ranked the city the rudest city in America.[8]  But this is not an issue that would even be considered a governmental problem by this prominent public official.  This fact reflects a great deal about how the nation tends to see government, civility, and, in turn, civics education.

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[1] For example, Marian Wilde, “Global grade: How do U.S. students compare?” Great Schools, April 2, 2015, accessed on February 27, 2017, http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/u-s-students-compare/ .

[2] Political scientist, Robert Putnam, tells us that social capital means having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.

[3] Jon Cohen & Michael D. Shear, “Poll Shows More Americans Think Obama Is a Muslim,” The Washington Post (Washington, D. C.), August 8, 2010, accessed February 28, 2017, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/18/AR2010081806913.html .

[4] Lawrence J. Kotlikoff, “Paul Samuelson’s Amazing Intergenerational Transfer,” in Samuelsonian Economics and the Twenty-first Century, eds. M. Szenberg, L. Ramratten, and A. A. Gottesman (New York, NY:  Oxford University Press, 2006), 42-53 AND Trading Economics, “United States Personal Savings Rate,” Trading Economics 2016, accessed February 28, 2017, http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/personal-savings .

[5] Don E. Eberly, “Introduction: The Quest for a Civil Society,” in Building a Community of Citizens: Civil Society in the 21st Century, ed. Don E. Eberly (Lanham, MD:  University Press of America, Inc., 1994), xvii-xlviii.

[6] Michael B. Lybarger, “The Historiography of Social Studies:  Retrospect, Circumspect, and Prospect,” in  Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning, ed. James P. Shaver (New York, NY:   MacMillan Publishing Company, 1991), 3-15.

[7] Jean M. Twenge & W. Keith Campbell, W. K. The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement (New York, NY:  Free Press, 2009).

[8] Katrina B. Hunt, America’s Rudest Cities, Travel and Leisure, 2016, http://www.travelandleisure.com/americas-favorite-places/rudest-cities .