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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