This posting carries on this blog’s argument about
instituting among social studies/civics teachers the belief that civics
education should hold, if not the prominent, a highly esteemed position in the
rationale for public education as well as private education. That is, such a notion should be an element
of a teacher preparation program and instill in its prospective teachers a
sense of the importance of their sought-after jobs.
To remind the reader, here is the written form
of this element,
A
viable teacher preparation program needs to make clear that civic preparation
is not only a foundation of civics education or even social studies, but of all
public education and of responsible, private educational programs as well.
To this point, various historians have been
cited to support this contention and a review of several stated aims for
education have been shared – for example, of note was the National Education Association’s
Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education “principles”, the 1918 Cardinal
Principles of Secondary Education, that placed civic education as number
five in its listing of seven principles.[1]
But
of late, such a role has been mostly forgotten and today public education along
with private education is sold on practical grounds. The main focus seems to be: How do educational opportunities further the
interests of individual students? And
with such an emphasis, what is the hidden message that society is communicating? It is:
government, through its education programs, is not something one participates
in but instead, is merely a dispenser of services, including education.
And
the taxpaying citizens are merely the consumers of such services. Applying this perception to schools, one is
told that schools are built for kids or that all that happens in schools is
done for the benefit of children. This
sounds right to a citizen who might not give such a question much thought. Intuitively, one agrees when someone else
states this premise, but as a trump or ultimate goal, aim, or value, it is far
afield from the original aims of those who first proposed public education to
this nation.
Who
says this “civic thing” should be the ultimate value? Take the following Supreme Court statement into
consideration:
The primary purpose of the maintenance of the common school system is the
promotion of the general intelligence of the people constituting the body
politic and thereby to increase the usefulness and efficiency of the citizens,
upon which the government of society depends.
Free schooling furnished by the state is not so much a right granted to
pupils as a duty imposed upon them for the public good.[2]
The clear point of the judges’ opinion is that
public schooling is not for the benefit of the individual student, but for the
interests of society. Surely,
advancement of the former usually advances the latter, but not always. There are times when the interests of the
community – as in mandating masking during a pandemic – outweigh the believed
interests of the individual.
Beyond
that, defining the purpose of schooling as a consumer service puts all affected
persons who are involved in education in a different mindset. After all, like all businesses, one wants
happy customers not burdened with duties and obligations, but instead satisfied
with a product that makes them feel good even if the original purpose of
offering the product has not been met.
This
former teacher observed during his years of service that students did not
generally go to school with a desire for receiving the service they were there
to receive. One observes that a
different general disposition seems to be at play when compared to young people
attending a movie theater or an amusement park.
But, under a general mode of schooling, to
satisfy the student-customer (and often his/her parents), school officials
often find it necessary to enhance the service to make it seem as if the school
day is more like a movie theater or an amusement park. This is not bluntly stated or readily
observed. Instead, a general assumed
sense prevails that manifests itself in many ways during the school year.
Often,
good teachers are not defined as those who engage students in meaningful
learning, but as those who have the skills or personality to make sure students
have fun. When asked how a lesson went,
teachers tend to reply whether the students liked it or not, not whether the
lesson elicited meaningful engagement or whether students learned from the
experience.
Those
aspects of the educational process, which by their very nature depend on
students fulfilling a duty or obligation, are lessened, or eliminated. Concerns for learning become compromised more
and more as the years go by. So
deteriorated has the learning function become that in the last twenty years,
states have taken to imposing outside standards and evaluation instruments to
verify the schools’ claims that learning has/is taking place. That is, one cannot trust schoolteachers and
administrators to hold honest and meaningful evaluation of their students’
progress.
Grade
point averages have lost their meaning – at least, to a great degree; diplomas
have less value. Such statements as an
individual student being an honor student become significant as some quality
other than academic achievement. But
most important, schools become places other than where one can promote civics
education. The notion that education is
a product of a community effort loses its sense of communal accomplishment or
even meaning. And in the opinion of this
blogger, this has been progressing – or is it regressing? – for a significant
number of decades.
Education
for the masses cannot be just another consumer service; it must be a
collective/communal endeavor for the benefit of the society that it
serves. And central to such a view or
sentiment is the civic function such a view entails. An effective teacher preparation program, one
that leads to a state certification, needs to make plain this distinction
between a commercial view and a communal view and make it clear that one should
advance education’s ultimate goal of enhancing the health of the society it
serves.
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