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, May 22, 2020

THE MAGRUDER AND GLENCOE CASE, PART III


[Note:  If the reader has taken up reading this blog with this posting, he/she is helped by knowing that this posting is the next one in a series of postings.  The series begins with the posting, “The Natural Rights’ View of Morality” (February 25, 2020, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-natural-rights-view-of-morality.html).  Overall, the series addresses how the study of political science has affected the civics curriculum of the nation’s secondary schools.]

The last posting left the reader with an assignment.  It reported the chapter titles and number of pages each of those chapters contained for a 2013 edition[1] of the Magruder American government textbook.  The reader was assigned to review the information and see if he/she could derive any conclusions as to what this blog has been claiming – that the writing of such textbooks are guided by the natural rights construct of government and politics. 
Unfortunately, this writer can’t hear what the reader discovered, but below is what the writer gleaned from the listing.  But before sharing it, the reader should be reminded what the natural rights view promotes.  Central to that view is a belief in natural rights or natural liberty – hence the name.  So, if Magruder’s is so guided, perhaps its chapter titles and page allocation would reflect it.
          If one looks at the titles from Chapter 19 to 21, accounting for 100 pages of 769 pages of text material (roughly one seventh), those pages are dedicated to the concept of rights.  Chapters 19 and 20 seem to be solely concerned with individual rights and Chapter 21 incorporates a concern for justice that at least has a communal angle to it.  After all, justice does demand a societal landscape.  But overall, given the number of pages all three chapters dedicate to rights, one can safely assume the author, William McClenaghan, has a strong concern over this topic.
          To compare this one element to the 2019 edition,[2] a listing of its chapters, page allocations, and topics is needed.  In that version two important changes take hold.  First, the author is another person, Daniel M. Shea – a professor of government at Colby College.  Shea has divided the text differently as the following list indicates:
Name of Text:  Magruder (2019 edition)
Topic/Title                                                                          Number of Pages
1. Foundations of Government                                                              34
2. Beginnings of American Government                                               61
3. The Constitution                                                                                51
4. The Legislative Branch                                                                     73
5. The Executive Branch – the Presidency and Vice Presidency          34
6. The Executive Branch at Work                                                         62
7. The Judicial Branch                                                                          26 
8. Protecting Civil Liberties                                                                  64
9. Citizenship and Civil Rights                                                             38
10. Government by the People                                                              78
11. Elections                                                                                          58
12. Government and the Economy                                                        50
13. California State and Local Government                                          62
14. Comparative Government                                                               24
Total = 715 pages; 102 pages dedicated to rights (Topics 8 & 9)
The first difference one can detect between the 2013 and 2019 editions is that the text is divided differently.  Instead of 25 chapters, there are 14 topics.  Each topic, within the text, is divided into “lessons.”  In the opinion of this writer, this newer outlay takes into account that American government is usually a semester – as opposed to a yearly – course of study.
There are 180 school days in the school year, 90 in a semester.  Many weeks of the school year are not made up of five days.  For example, Thanksgiving week is only three days (the writer’s local school district recently cut that down to two days).  Many secondary schools operate under the assumption that every course taught can follow the same format in that tests are assigned a specific day of the week so as not to overload a student with too many tests on the same day. 
So, a teacher’s test day in biology might be on a Monday, social studies on a Friday, language arts on a Wednesday, and so on.  Usually the approach used divides the course into units that last a week and attempt to cover a chapter or topic per unit.  That means a chapter needs to be covered – given the practical constraints of the calendar – in a week’s time. 
Now if the reader puts him/herself in the shoes of the average high school student – a person who cares next to nothing about the topics covered in Magruder and understands that government is one of six or seven courses he/she is taking – the contents of such a textbook can seem overwhelming.  The course, American government, in Florida is usually offered in the senior year and some of the other courses that senior might be taking include pre-calculus, physics, and English literature. 
Also figure-in applying to colleges and the general exhaustion of this type of schooling for last twelve or more years the he/she has already experienced.  All that is a challenge, but it doesn’t end there.  Now think of that government teacher with about 25-30 students in any given period with all this going on in their students’ lives.  Those teachers’ charge is to teach American government in such a way as to promote a general view of governance and politics that reflects some conceptualization of the subject matter.
The conceptualization might be in line with natural rights thinking – probably is – but some might opt for some other perspective.  Some might be guided by critical theory, a Marxian view, or federation theory.  Now if that teacher promotes a federalist message – one that highlights a communal and collaborative sense of the subject – can he/she count on the text to be of assistance or does it provide yet another obstacle?
This writer’s first impression of the above lists of chapters/topics (2013 and 2019) is that the content puts almost all of its emphasis on the structure and processes of the central government in Washington.  That is, it has the mechanical view previously described in this blog.  That view highlights how that government responds to the input generated from its societal environment (both domestically and internationally). 
Only two chapters in 2013 and one topic in 2019, at or toward the end of each text, are dedicated to local government and most of that attention is on the state level.  That is a problem for the teacher adhering to federation theory.  Federation theory, in its advocacy for an engaged citizenry within communal settings and collaborative arrangements, holds the quality, social capital, as an important social attribute. 
Social capital, using the thoughts of Robert Putnam, is characterized by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.[3]  With that sense, one is apt to engage in politics, but, to be realistic, that is highly dependent on a political landscape that one can expect a realistic chance of being effective.
 For most citizens, effective participation is limited to involvement with local government – usually city or county government, not national government.  Why?  Most people do not have the resources to affect national policy, but they do have the resources to influence local politics and policy formation.  So, if the goal is to promote participation which in turn enhances social capital, shouldn’t the emphasis in civics education be directed toward local governance?  That’s what makes sense to this writer. 
On the other hand, he judges the above distribution of attention – as indicated by the page distribution of the texts – is geared not to participation, but to observation.  If successful, the above content seems to be geared toward informing the average citizen so that he or she will be able to watch national news and understand it.  With that viewership, a citizen can be an informed voter and able to translate personal preferences into voting decisions.
Does this emphasis characterize the whole text?  No, at least in the 2013 edition it does have students consider a more interactive role – a feature this blog will address in the next posting.  To emphasize, these exceptions are just that; they make up few entries in the textbook and are easily lost and ignored, given the overall challenge of “teaching” a 700 plus page textbook in fewer than 36 weeks (fewer than 18 weeks in a semester). 
This writer wishes that the emphasis of Magruder was clearer.  While the 2013 edition does contain an element that encourages engagement, it is an exceptional element and it is not picked up in the 2019 edition.  But it is worth reviewing this effort to give the reader a sense of how the materials emanating from the establishment views this concern. 
The reader is reminded that a previous posting asked if the establishment of civics education has been opting toward a more federated posture.  That drift is detected in the standards that have been issued of late – such as the C3 Framework[4] – but does it appear in that all-important component of the curriculum, the textbook?  The next posting takes a further look.


[1] William McClenaghan, Magruder’s American Government (Florida Teacher’s Edition) (Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson, 2013).

[2] Daniel M. Shea, Magruder’s American Government (Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson, 2019).

[3] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

[4] National Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) (Washington, D. C.:  NCSS, 2013), accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/c3 . 

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