JUDGING PAROCHIAL FEDERALISM, XVII

 

Before starting this posting, a word regarding Uvalde is offered.  Profound sorrow is felt over this senseless event.

An advocate of parochial federalism continues his/her presentation[1] …

Student Pedagogical Interests [2]

          This posting will complete this blog’s review of the parochial/federalist view regarding the first curricular commonplace, the student, by focusing on students’ pedagogical interests.  Curricular decisions must be made with a realistic approach concerning the learning conditions and contexts which characterize American classrooms and therefore affect students.  This dialectic argument advocates changes in curriculum toward federalist ideals and such moves make certain assumptions about the nature of learners relevant to those changes.

That would include changes in the educational substance and processes that are associated with any resulting prescriptions.  In large measure, those conditions take on the form of assumptions and are related to the abilities and aptitudes of American adolescents in their study of historical material, since the parochial federalist construct calls for a high degree of analysis of historical information. 

That is, information contained in accounts that transpired in earlier days and over the documents associated with those events would be the material students would be called upon to study.        This posting addresses those assumptions and questions about whether the proposed change is viable in today’s classrooms. 

Specifically, this posting will look at two issues – posed as questions:

 

·      Are students in the middle and high school years sufficiently sophisticated to analyze the historical material?

·      Are these students cognitively matured enough to deal with the issues and perform the skills necessary to meaningfully benefit from a study of the issues associated with parochial/traditional federalism?

 

Given the current condition in society, i.e., the prevalence of the natural rights perspective, many of the descriptions which will emanate from the parochial federalist approach might seem to students to be bizarre or counter-intuitive to what they have come to expect.  In many ways, federalist inspired content would take on a different language and point to unexpected concerns.

          Some time ago, John B. Poster shared some insightful descriptors about how young people view history.  He delineates several notions of time when studying a cultural contextual subject:  that would be social time, literary time, personal time, physical (clock) time, and historical time.  Historical time “[requires a] sense of existing in the past as well as the present, a feeling of being in history rather than standing apart from it.”[3] 

This interaction might and does get thwarted by cultural biases, as those in Western societies with their market orientation of current consumptive-centered views.  Under such a prevailing, general view, commentators are prone to become practical in the study of history (or any other subject). 

When one comes to history and being practical, one often cites the following reasons for such study:  understanding the world, becoming a more rounded person, understanding one’s identity, becoming inspired, learning from mistakes, and developing transferable skills (such as analyzing social information).[4]  In each of these, the interests of the learner, exclusively, seems to be the motivation for such concerns.

Yet history, while assisting with these sorts of aims, can more fundamentally tempt or challenge its readers and students to question their basic views of life, their existence, and their modes of living in their most basic sense.  And these other concerns expand from the individual to more socially motivated interests.  When tied with the transformational time of life – adolescence – a realistic, substantive, and even introspective approach to this study can be of great benefit to those young people and the general society.

This makes the challenges of teaching history or historical material more difficult, but not impossible.  Several studies (Bradley Commission on History in School,[5] William J. Friedman,[6] and E. C. Oakden and Mary Sturt[7]) establish the recognition of the ability of eight- and nine-year-old youngsters to cognitively figure estimates of the amount of time that has transpired since events have taken place, to separate events in chronological order, and to connect dates with specific individuals and events.

More recently, these topics are beginning to be seen as having a placating role over contentious issues even for younger students.  Here is a more recent view expressing a concern over the state of social attention that American schools are affording to younger students.

 

There’s long been concern about American students’ lack of history and civics knowledge.  On national tests, 85% of eighth graders score below proficient in U.S. history, as do about 75% in geography and civics.  Now there’s also handwringing about whether it’s possible to teach these subjects in an even-handed way.  But a more basic problem is that many students reach middle and high school without enough background knowledge to grasp much history at all, let alone understand it in all its complexity – especially if they haven’t been able to pick up historical knowledge at home.  In the current polarized climate, that leaves them vulnerable to oversimplified versions of the country’s past.[8]

 

This cited article further calls for more meaningful questioning, even at lower grades, so that teachers can direct study more meaningfully to reveal consequential issues (an example in the article cites the Boston Tea Party and suggests questions about how colonists should have reacted to this illegal incident).

          Not only does Natalie Wexler, the author of the above quote, believe elementary students should tackle such questions, but that a more probing history is recommended for a kindergarten curriculum.  Of course, reasonableness should guide what is doable for such young students.  But the point here is that if higher geared, more revealing questioning can be utilized with these younger students, then those types of questions are quite suitable for adolescents in secondary schools.

          Jean Piaget, back in the 1960s, argued that children can make a wide range of logical relationships including causal and temporal relations at an early age.  And the literature supporting this claim is quite extensive.[9]  With these skills, students of the middle and high school years can facilitate the acquisition of historical knowledge with the use of narratives or scripts (story lines).[10]  Narratives allow people to interrelate with historical events and events from one’s own life and they also allow a holistic sense of the time studied.

          But isn’t the concern here not history but civics?  The parochial/traditional federalist construct favors – not to the exclusion of other forms of research – historical inquiry in the study of federalist issues.  In turn, in building those narratives or checking their veracity, documentary evidence becomes important.  There is evidence – cited here – that a course of study that primarily depends on that type of evidence is viable.

With nine- and ten-year-old students, despite being less knowledgeable of dates and comprehensive information, they acquired, with appropriate historical lessons, clearer views of studied periods – of their people – and a more meaningful understanding of the problems faced by those people.

 

Historical contributions to civics education can be as simple as providing narratives and sources that demonstrate people in the past had an impact on the world in which they lived. The past is filled with people who are not given the agency in traditional textbooks that they possessed in life. [11]

 

And for a more substantive instructional strategy, the reader is encouraged to see this blogger’s book, Toward a Federated Nation, where his “historical dialogue-to-action” (HD-to-A) instructional model is described and explained.[12] 

Overall, there is ample evidence to suggest that students at the middle and high school levels are cognitively capable (actually, better suited) to pursue a study of American government or civics using history and utilizing the parochial federalist construct to guide such study.  With the above cited evidence, the conclusion can be drawn that students at the secondary level are sophisticated enough to analyze the historical material used in conjunction with that construct. 

That is, they are cognitively mature enough to analyze and reflect on the issues which federalism holds as important.  And with that, the reader is set to review the next commonplace, the teacher.

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[1] This presentation begins with the posting, “A Parochial Subject Matter” (March 11, 2022).  The reader is reminded that the claims made in this posting do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or knowledge of this blogger.  Instead, the posting is a representation of what an advocate of parochial federalism might present.  This is done to present a dialectic position of that construct.

[2] William H. Schubert, Curriculum:  Perspective, Paradigm, and Possibility (New York, NY:  MacMillan Publishing Company, 1986).  The meaning of this term has been shared in previous postings and refers to the political interests of students that curriculum developers should consider in their plans.

[3] John B. Poster, “The Birth of the Past:  Children’s Perception of Historical Time,” The Historical Teacher, 6, 4 (August 1973), 587-598, 589.

[4] For example, Nord Anglia, “Why Is It Important to Study History?,” Nord Anglia (April, 29, 2020), accessed May 25, 2022, https://www.nordangliaeducation.com/news/2020/04/29/why-is-it-important-to-study-history .

[5] “Resolution of the Commission Steps toward Excellence in the School History Curriculum,” Bradley Commission on History in Schools (Westlake, OH:  Author, 1988).

[6] William J. Friedman, “Development of Time Concepts in Children,” in Advances in Child Development and Behavior, editors Hayne Reese and Lewis Lipsitt, 12 (New York, NY:  Academic Press, 1978), 267-298.

[7] E. C. Oakden and Mary Sturt, “The Development of Knowledge of Time in Children,” British Journal of Psychology, 12 (1922), 309-336.

[8] Natalie Wexler, “Why We Need to Start Teaching History in Kindergarten,” Forbes (July 5, 2021), accessed May 25, 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2021/07/05/why-we-need-to-start-teaching-history-in-kindergarten/?sh=63078e1b1e8f .

[9] Along with Wexler, examples include Robin Fivush and Elizabeth Slackman, “The Acquistion and Development of Scripts,” in Event Knowledge:  Structure and Function in Development, edited by K. Nelson (Hillsdale, NJ:  Lawrence Erlbaum, 1986), 71-96 AND Friedman, “Development of Time Concepts in Children,” in Advances in Child Development and Behavior AND L. Harner, “Talking about the Past and Future,” in The Development of Time, edited by William J. Friedman (New York, NY:  Academic Press, 1982), 141-169 AND Roy N. Smith and Peter Tomilson, “The Development of Children’s Construction of Historical Duration:  A New Approach and Some Findings,” Educational Research, 19 (1977), 163-170.

[10] Here one finds another extensive literature.  See, for example, Charles L. Newhall, “Witnessing Historical Thinking:  Teaching Students to Construct Historical Narratives, Common Place, 12, 3 (April 2012), accessed May 25, 2022, http://commonplace.online/article/witnessing-historical-thinking/ .

[11] “Civics Education,” The Inclusive Historian’s Handbook (January 15, 2021), accessed May 25, 2022, https://inclusivehistorian.com/civics-education/#:~:text=Historical%20contributions%20to%20civics%20education,that%20they%20possessed%20in%20life. AND to feature how long this insight has been recognized, see David W. Blake, “Observing Children Learning History,” The History Teacher, 14 (1981), 533-549.

[12] Robert Gutierrez, Toward a Federated Nation:  Implementing National Civics Standards (Tallahassee, FL:  Gravitas/Civics Books, 2020).  Available through Amazon.

 

JUDGING PAROCHIAL FEDERALISM, XVI

 

An advocate of parochial federalism continues his/her presentation[1] …

Student Political Interests [2] (cont.)

          With a backdrop of an objectified, general approach by which to consider political issues – one that counts on such methods as cost-benefit analysis – and one that avoids normative questioning, what remains for students to consider as they grow old enough to enter the political fray?  One focus or related concern:  American institutional support for political debate has become weak when the need for that debate has become more important.

          That is, as the citizenry has become more dependent on governmental services in a more complex, post-industrial society, institutions such as political parties have not collaterally met the task of providing the arena(s) for such debate.  Instead, single-issue interests, such as political action committees (organizations that pool political assets of members to fight for some vested interest), have maintained their activities although the general landscape has changed since the final years of the last century. 

Today, those pacts are caught up in an overarching polarized political environment where these pacts find themselves, out of necessity, embroiled in alliances – one of two grand alliances.  But their functions are still the same.

          By financially supporting candidates, they gain access not so much to debate the issues, but to inform the beholding politicians of their promotions on the specific issue(s) that interest them.  Oftentimes such issues are little known or understood by the general public.  What discussion exists is not in the content of the general good but is constrained by the concerns associated with the particular issues in question.  Even the introduction of social media has not changed this basic dynamic.

            Those who served to coalesce demands through the processes of compromise, such as leaders of political clubs, parties, and even political “machines” (which in these days take the form of a national polarized side – the left or the right – the liberals/progressives or the conservative/nationalists) have had their roles changed.  Now, the coalescing happens out of emotional leaguing as opposed to thought-out debate.  As such, it takes on an Us-Them characterization.[3]

The current national arena is characterized by these two sides coalescing an array of interest groups of broad breadth.  Why? Because the opposition is similarly arranged, and one interest cannot face that broad alliance singularly and have any chance of success.  This blogger, in his pending book (From Immaturity to Polarized Politics), expends quite a few pages describing these phenomena and relies heavily on the modeling proposed by E. E. Schattschneider.[4] 

Until recent years, negative opinion polls concerning politicians, the political process, and low voter turnouts serve as evidenced of the general dislike that Americans are feeling.  The Pew Center regularly issues a report on this sort of concern.  Here is a sample of what it has reported:

Though the public is unhappy with government generally, Americans are largely divided on key measures of their ability to influence how it runs, including the impact of voting on government and the ability of motivated individuals to influence the way government works.

When asked which statement comes closer to their own views, most Americans (58%) say that “voting gives people like me some say about how government runs things,” while fewer (39%) say “voting by people like me doesn’t really affect how government runs things.”

The public is somewhat more skeptical when it comes to the ability of ordinary citizens to influence the government in Washington. Half (50%) say ordinary citizens can do a lot to influence the government in Washington, if they are willing to make the effort, while about as many (47%) say there’s not much ordinary citizens can do to influence the government.[5]

While this general view of a despondent electorate prevails (a true republic would have a much higher rate of influence over public policy), it should be pointed out that in 2020, the electorate voted at an over 60% turnout – very high by American standards.  Perhaps intensified polarized politics is revving up emotions and encouraging a higher rate of participation.

          But even with this relative uptick, generally, Americans are noted for their indifference.  The current negativity, regardless of how many go out and vote, in the form of alienation and withdrawal (and if engaged, being done out of anger and disgust) toward politics is a far cry from the reported rapport Americans felt among the founding generation in the eighteenth century.[6]

          If government is to again issue policies perceived to advance the common good and earn a more positive reaction from the populace, citizens must develop a better awareness.  Of what?  Of the basic sources of their discontent and become convinced that political work needs to be done to recreate the necessary political institutions that lead to general welfare policies. 

Such a realization must begin in the nation’s social studies classrooms, particularly in government or civics courses.  This is particularly important for the typical student who will most likely not be represented directly by high priced lobbyists or political action committees that make influential contributions to politicians on the behalf of those lobbyists and committees.

          For citizens to regain control, a resocialization of the republican values that wrestled control from the British in 1776 must take place.  Such a socialization is the nation’s historical heritage.  One element of such a campaign would be to reestablish the political theory that informed and motivated Americans not only at the beginning, but through most of its history, the parochial/traditional federalist construct.[7]

          This blog will next address its last position concerning the commonplace of curriculum development, the student, before it turns to the next commonplace, that being teachers.  The last position of the student commonplace is “pedagogic student interest.”

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[1] This presentation begins with the posting, “A Parochial Subject Matter” (March 11, 2022).  The reader is reminded that the claims made in this posting do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or knowledge of this blogger.  Instead, the posting is a representation of what an advocate of parochial federalism might present.  This is done to present a dialectic position of that construct.

[2] William H. Schubert, Curriculum:  Perspective, Paradigm, and Possibility (New York, NY:  MacMillan Publishing Company, 1986).  The meaning of this term has been shared in previous postings and refers to the political interests of students that curriculum developers should consider in their plans.

[3] Frank Schweitzer, Tamas Krivachy, and David Garcia, “An Agent-Based Model of Opinion Polarized Driven by Emotions, Hindawi (April 10, 2020).

[4] E. E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People:  A Realist’s View of Democracy in America (New York, NY:  Hole, Rinehart and Winston, 1960).

[5] “8. Perceptions of the Public’s Voice in Government and Politics,” Pew Research Center (November 23, 2015), accessed May 22, 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2015/11/23/8-perceptions-of-the-publics-voice-in-government-and-politics/ .

[6] Gordon S. Wood, Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1969/1968).  This conclusion is questioned.  Critical scholars have cited evidence that perhaps this sort of rapport might have been limited to the privileged segments of the population.  But even with these advocates, a certain level of agreement exists with the general support the Revolution enjoyed, for example, which was needed for that effort to have succeeded.  See Ray Raphael, A People’s History of the American Revolution:  How Common People Shaped the Fights for Independence (New York, NY:  Perennial, 2001).

[7] Daniel Elazar contends that that theory, federalism, is still held in prominence.  See Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL:  The University of Alabama Press, 1987).