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, April 20, 2018

AN AFTERTHOUHGT?


The last posting introduced a publication issued by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS).  The NCSS is the professional organization of social studies educators.  The publication, referred to here as C3 Framework,[1] is meant to provide standards so that educators in this field can go about integrating state standards to the Common Core curricular standards.  State education bureaucracies can adopt Common Core standards on a voluntary basis.
          This blog, in real time, will review this publication and make comment on its content.  It will “evaluate” the standards and other rationale arguments the publication makes against this blog’s stated arguments in favor of federation theory.  Summarily, federation theory is proposed in this blog as a guide to determine social studies content, especially in the subject matter of civics and government; secondary subjects, students are required to take to gain either advancement into high school or a high school diploma.
          The last posting ended with a list of principles the NCSS devised to guide them in their development of the publication.  They are:
·        Social studies prepares the nation’s young people for college, careers, and civic life.
·        Inquiry is at the heart of social studies.
·        Social studies involves interdisciplinary applications and welcomes integration of the arts and humanities.
·        Social studies is composed of deep and enduring understandings, concepts, and skills from the disciplines.  Social studies emphasizes skills and practices as preparation for democratic decision-making.
·        Social studies education should have direct and explicit connections to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts.
The writer, in that posting, hypothesized that this effort by the NCSS would be guided by the natural rights construct since this effort is to bolster the curricular work of both national and state educational bureaucracies.  A good place to test that educated hunch is with the above principles of this national – in scope – project.
          To begin, this writer will not assume that the principles are listed in some order of priority.  That is, they could have been listed in any order without giving the reader a different sense of what is more important than something else.  Perhaps there is some logical progression involved, but that does not determine more importance to one principle over another.  If anything, one might place highest importance to the last listed principle, since it reveals the fundamental reason the project was undertaken.
          For the purposes of this review, it will, over at least two postings, begin with the first listed principle and proceed to the last.  In this, this writer has a very heavy concern with the first listed principle.  It identifies what the standards’ aim is for social studies and lists three preparational targets.  Here one can assume a priority listing since these could easily be listed in any optional order.  By listing college first, careers second, and civic life last, the developers betray a political concern.
          First, the central raison d’etre for social studies, heck for all public schooling, is good citizenship.  That is why education is guaranteed, either using public or private funds.  At least that is how the establishment of public schooling was initially sold to the powerholders of this nation.  If the main goals were college and careers, then why should tax monies be expended on them?  If a person wants his/her kids to go to college or have a rewarding career, why should that be a financial burden on the general population?
          No, the reason tax monies are used is that it is in the common good to have good citizens.  Early on this blog, it had the following to say on this topic:
Despite the prudence of instituting public schools, it took until the mid-1800s to sell the idea and begin the process culminating in the system there is today. There has been, almost since the beginning of the nation, a recurring theme by those advancing public education of what the basic aim should be. The historian Butts[2] writes about the ways some of the founders captured this theme.
He writes: “preparing the people for the common duties of republican citizenship required a common education whose first and basic priority is building and maintaining a cohesive political community devoted to the civic ideals of liberty, equality, popular consent, and personal obligation for the public good.”[3]
Among the early historical dignitaries supporting such a notion where Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington. More directly stated, the central reason for building a public-school system was to prepare good citizens. This reason does not exclude other reasons; it was and is merely held to be the most important, at least in the minds of these heroic characters and many others who followed.
Since those days, though, the status of social studies has vacillated in a generally downward direction.[4]
This writer is making a point of this priority because he feels that the stated sense of importance within this publication leads to less than optimal policy choices.  As stated, it communicates an individualist notion of what education should strive to accomplish.  This is at the sacrifice of communal interests.  It is line with the shift in American political thinking and sensitivities.
          That shift, as this blog has reported, is one from a federalist view to the natural rights view; a shift completed in the years following World War II.  Whether someone is ready for college or is being set up to take on rewarding careers is mostly a personal ambition.  Yes, a nation is healthier if its citizens can attain good, higher education or be afforded meaningful work experiences.  But this positive result is only indirectly an asset for the commonwealth.
          And with this priority, the rest of the principles take on a more personal bent.  One is more apt to read the other four principles as furthering what individual students can secure for their own benefits.  The argument here is not to do away with individual concerns; they are important.  Surely, social studies can serve to bolster those interests.  But those interests should be defined within public institution’s main concern.  That is the common good.
          The next posting will look more closely at the remaining principles and then, with subsequent postings, get into the body of the C3 Framework.  Of main interest is:  does this judged priority influence the content of this document?  Again, the hypothesis is:  yes, it does.


[1] National Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life (Washington, D. C.:  NCSS, 2013), accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/c3.

[2] R. Freeman Butts, The Civic Mission in Educational Reform: Perspectives for the Public and the Profession (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1989).

[3] Ibid, p. 65

[4] “Civics Education: Job One,” September 24, 2010.  Modified to adjust to current editorial format of this blog.  This posting has been deleted from the archival collection of this blog.

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