[Note:
This posting is a continuation of a series of postings that addresses
what a civics teacher preparation program should include. If not read, the reader is encouraged to check
out the previous postings in this series that began with the posting on September
28, 2021, entitled “Prime Reason.”]
To remind the reader, here is the element of a
preferred approach to a civics teacher preparation program that this blog is currently
considering,
Element
Three: A program that imparts the
teaching skills that allow those perspective teachers to conduct curriculum
strategies that instruct children and adolescents in the civic knowledge and
skills suitable to their developmental level and to the civic challenges of
their community, state, and nation.
This element invites an interested party to
consider a variety of instructional strategies which were reviewed in the last
posting. They were arranged according to
a conceptualized continuum from a scientific/technical end to a non-scientific/non-technical,
holistic end.
Generally,
that continuum points out that instruction can vary according to what one expects
students’ roles can assume from being passive recipients of information to an
active, discovering role to participation in relevant, artistic endeavors. That posting made two claims regarding how
teachers, on a given day, should decide what strategy to employ in conducting a
lesson.
That would be, first, that whatever strategy a
teacher might employ, so as to be successful; it must engage students in
conducting reflective consideration of the content presented or discovered. Second, that teachers should be familiar with
this variety of options and be able to function at each one to best react to
the various factors teachers face during the school year.
But there is another concern. When this blogger was a faculty member at
Florida State University, the teacher preparation program in the social science
education offerings offered three methods courses: one, was the basics and taught a traditional
mode of instruction, two, a course mostly dedicated to teaching techniques in
reading instruction as applied to social studies, and three, a course focused
on inquiry instruction. In this triad,
the aim by FSU’s profs was to view the effort in terms of this other concern,
that of developmental considerations.
That is, beyond instructional concerns over what
level of engagement students should be asked to assume, the belief was that the
needs associated with student developmental, or maturity levels should strongly
influence what is planned. In short, that
consideration should be a meaningful concern of any civics education program.
Of course, all discussion regarding
developmental theory begins with a consideration of Jean Piaget’s model. The basic claim of that model relevant to the
concern here is the notion that children gain in their ability to think
abstractly as they become older or more mature.
Another developmental theorist, Lawrence Kohlberg, provides a model that
depicts the developmental stages of moral thinking.
The relevant claim of the Kohlberg model is
that children are able, due in part to their ability to think more abstractly, to
shift their moral attention from egocentric concerns toward more general and
universal moral interests. One might
define maturation in terms of these two dimensions – abstract and moral
thinking. Therefore, one can begin with
a realization that young people are cognitively and emotionally moving targets.
Young people go through changes, and they do not
do so at the same pace or in a linear progression. The curricular theorist, Ralph Tyler,
borrowing an idea originally developed by Hollis L. Caswell and Ronald F. Campbell
in a famous book on curriculum development, popularizes the position that
curriculum originates from three sources: the student, the society, and the
subject matter or the academic discipline.
To explain, Tyler argues that one needs to find
a balance in the influence that each source exerts. This insight is very helpful but taking these
concerns one step further, one can apply the developmental ideas of Piaget and Kohlberg
and conclude that the point of balance should ideally shift as students mature. That is, in part, younger students or older
immature students tend to be very self-centered with a very low-level ability
to think abstractly.
Therefore, at stages when the student is young
or highly immature, the balance should actually favor the student – his/her
concerns – as the primary source.
Content should revolve around issues that directly affect students such
as relations with parents, student rights, the demands of schooling, etc.
As the student matures, issues of society would
seem to become more engaging. Here,
issues such as poverty, war and peace, constitutional provisions, etc. can be
the sources of instruction. Finally, the
more mature students should be open to issues that originate with the
disciplines – history, political science, economics, etc. The disciplines offer more powerful knowledge
and are aimed at solving more universal problems.
Examples of discipline issues might include FED
policy on controlling the money supply, the merits of President Jackson’s
antagonism toward a national bank, the relative strengths and weaknesses
between a strong executive model of governing as opposed to a weak executive
model, etc.
Applying this framework to two curricular
approaches with which social studies teachers might be familiar, Project
Citizen is one that is more student-centered, while We the People
offers an approach that relies on societal issues and begins to incorporate
disciplinary knowledge. At every level in this three stage
progression – the student, the society, the discipline – the student is involved
with problem solving or issue solving activities or considerations, and what
evolves are the sources of those problems or issues.
The use of the progression depicted, from
student to discipline, hints at a trade-off.
That is, for those who argue that instruction should be based on issues defined
by the disciplines, they not only need to account for the lack of abstract
thinking ability among most students, but also for the lack of institutional
support facing many older, but immature students who unfortunately reflect certain
segments of the nation’s population.
Due to a variety of reasons (lack of time
because of multiple demands, cultural biases that are indifferent or hostile to
intellectual pursuits, or just individual indifference), low achieving students,
many from low-income families, are noted for having parents who provide low
levels of involvement in their children’s education. These students are also noted for not being
taught by the best teachers or being taught in academically demanding school
environments.
Without these supports, students are left to
their own interests to define those pursuits in which they will engage. Students need to want to learn something, a
motivation that can be spurred from a variety of origins (both internal and
external), before they do so. And with that – what should be seen as obvious –
insight, this posting will end. The next
posting has a few more ideas to complete this blog’s commentary on element three.
