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, July 29, 2022

FROM PAROCIAL FEDERALISM TO NATURAL RIGHTS

 

This blog, with the last posting, completed its outline of the parochial federalist view of governance and politics.  It did so from the perspective of an advocate for that construct.  In doing so, it showed the merits of incorporating it as the central construct for the teaching of American government and civics at the secondary level.

          The emphasis has been to both explain the construct as a republican theory that reflects the commitments of the founding generation of Americans around the time of the American Revolution, and as a structural foundation, in which compacts have brought layers of governmental arrangements together in a non-centralized structure which respects the integrity of each level.

          Combined, the construct is not only interested in the factual elements of the nation’s governmental system, but also in the normative questions or responsibilities and duties that citizens are expected to accord that system.  As such, the construct is seen as directly addressing the perceived levels of disaffection and dis-attachment characterizing many of today’s youth in how they meet those responsibilities and duties.

          In addition, the blog provided a critique of that construct by this blogger that emphasizes the narrowness of its view when it comes to identity factors.  The construct, through its influence on the American public and demonstrated through the years of its dominance, contributed to dysfunctional racism and xenophobic attitudes that undermined its claims of support for equality and liberty.  Such influence proved to be very costly in terms of human life (including a heavy death toll in a civil war), property loss, and in its effects to dash human ambitions.

          This blog now transitions from the thesis of an overall dialectic argument to the antithesis – which is currently situated in a thesis position.  That would be the natural rights construct.  It will be described and explained as a current dominant view.  As with the parochial federalist view, it will be presented by a sympathetic eye – as if this reviewer is an advocate.  He will do the best he can in that endeavor.

            Its full title is natural rights/liberalism perspective and the following approach, as just indicated, will be presented as if it should be the foundational construct for the teaching of American government and civics at the secondary level.  In general terms, the reasons for this argument will be that this perspective legitimately and viably promotes the interests of good citizenship and natural liberty.  That argument employs the language of freedom often voiced by many of its advocates as a gift from God.

That is, liberty is being defined as the freedom to do what one wants to do while respecting others to have the same and being amenable or supportive of a prevailing sense of transactional interactions with others.  Within these broad parameters, schools’ curricular treatment of government and politics will promote an approach to government that leaves such determinations over duties and responsibilities to individuals.  All reasonable and legal options from which to decide will be considered legitimate and in the purview of the individual. 

Therefore, this basic curricular choice avoids any attempt, either directly or by suggestion, of any preference for political values, ideals, ideas, other than for liberty, to the individual student.  For it is up to individuals to determine the type of citizens they will seek to be, only restrained by legal boundaries.

As with the parochial federalist review, this presentation of the natural rights perspective will attempt to answer the same research questions.  Overall, the concern is:  does the natural rights view provide a legitimate and viable way to study government and politics at the secondary school level, i.e., in middle schools and in high schools?  There, the targeted courses would be civics and American government, respectively.

              This overall question leads to subsidiary questions.  They are concerned with those issues associated with the comparison between the natural rights perspective, dominant today, and the federalist perspective, which is promoted in this blog.  These views, in many ways, are at odds not only concerning how governments should be described and explained, and how politics should be conducted, but about how people should behave in accordance with that governance and in their – especially political – interactions with each other. 

With that, therefore, the following subsidiary questions are offered:

 

1.    How has the construct guided/evolved in the teaching of American government and civics?

2.    What have been the salient consequences of that development?

3.    To what social arrangements should the development of this construct lead?

4.    How can desirable social arrangements – a la the precepts of the construct – come about?

 

In addition, they steer one’s attention to how Americans should proceed into the future – the espoused aims for those upcoming years. 

Through a description of the historical development of the effects of the two opposing perspectives, a clear comparison will be attempted.  This analysis will be guided by the above subsidiary questions as they relate to the commonplaces of curriculum.

The commonplaces of curriculum were developed by William Schubert[1] and include the subject matter, teachers, learners, and milieu.[2]  Each of these commonplaces will serve as the divisional categories of the following postings in much the same way they organized this blog’s review of the parochial/federalism construct.



[1] William H. Schubert, Curriculum:  Perspective, Paradigm, and Possibility (New York, NY:  MacMillan Publishing Company, 1986).

[2] They can be defined as follows: 

·       The subject matter refers to the academic content presented in the curriculum. 

·       The teacher is the professional instructor authorized to present and supervise curricular activities within the classroom setting. 

·       Learners are defined as those individuals attending school for the purpose of acquiring the education entailed with a particular curriculum. 

·       Milieu refers to the general cultural setting and ambiance within the varied social settings found at the school site. 

 

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