CHECK THE PERCEPTUAL EXTREME

 

To carry on with the series of postings, this blog has been presenting a view that argues civics education, and social studies in general, should focus on the local communities of students.  In that effort, this posting presents a taxonomy useful in developing a curriculum aimed at instituting such a change. 

The general idea has been that extreme levels of individualism and self-centeredness have encouraged a high degree of deviant behavior.  Students dealing with local issues and residents are judged to shift students’ concerns from themselves to others.  This is particularly true if opportunities to interact with neighbors or other community members, face-to-face, are possible.

The last posting introduced Stephen Toulmin’s argument model – one that presents a conclusion and the logical elements one should provide to make a case for that conclusion.[1]  That presentation is judged to be useful in forming a taxonomy, presented below, that would, in turn, assist educators devising an appropriate curriculum that would focus on local issues and problems.

          This blogger has tentatively devised this taxonomy based on Toulmin’s model.  Basically, Toulmin expands the syllogistic model of logic and demands that arguments be based on externally verifiable “warrant” statements which are really generalizations or laws.  Summarily, the presented taxonomy begins with various attributes.

 These attributes include skills dealing with conceptualizing and dealing with variables, a set of skills that has the students devise generalizations, and use them in identifying, evaluating, and formulating defensible arguments.  While presented as a process, these attributes should more appropriately be seen as individual elements that can be utilized as needed.

This blogger believes that a communal, problem-solving curriculum will both place students in the social setting where they begin to define meaning beyond individual concerns – be they materialist or otherwise – and help empower them with the proper skills and the acquisition of functional substantive knowledge to help them in the modern global economy.  It will also help students grasp the function and meaning of societal norms that check deviant behavior.

How?  As students deal with social institutions in local settings, they can begin to appreciate, implicitly, the necessity for social order and that personal success is based on organizational opportunities.  And to further accomplish a proper socialization of social norms, education should do away with the simplistic notions of perceptual psychology (which has become the dominant construct guiding educators[2]). 

While this blogger does not dispute the needs identified by perceptual psychology advocates, these should be couched in more encompassing theories of behavior.  The message that one need only perceive a goal and believe one can accomplish it and, further, will then transform the individual to assume all the sacrifice necessary for success, is absurd.  Notions that students can learn only in “democratic” classrooms (where they determine what is studied) or where they can learn to think and behave democratically, is equally without basis.

Proactively involving students with respected members of local communities, working under the democratic rubric of the nation’s society, with its opportunities and constraints, can be sufficient to achieve the “democratic” goals.  That includes such objectives as students appreciating that there are occasions to become involved and that they can express their preferences when it comes time to decide on policy.

This is different from a perceptual view that has defined democracy as exclusively being a system established to protect individual rights.  Actually, this does not agree with the definition of many constitutional scholars.  They see democracy exclusively based on a more communally founded system that allows collective action based on majority rule.[3]

But this is not the fault of the perceptual advocates alone.  A supportive tradition has long been entrenched.  Modern developments have made the intrinsic, dysfunctional nature of that tradition evident and acute.  All institutions will have to address the challenges that excessive individualism poses to American institutions.  The educational institution, including its curriculum workers, are not immune.  And with this inclusionary observation, this series of postings comes to an end.

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[1] See Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (New York, NY:  Cambridge University Press, 1958).  A logical argument contains:

·       a datum statement (e.g., since Daniel is a union laborer),

·       a claim (e.g., therefore, Daniel is a registered Democratic voter),

·       a warrant statement (e.g., because organized labor has a strong partisan allegiance for the Democratic Party),

·       a backing or data statement (e.g., because union workers vote Democratic at a 51% rate as voter choices are documented by studies such as that offered by research outfits such as PRO Morning Consult),

·       a qualifier (e.g., unless Daniel is among 23% who vote Republican or otherwise), and

·       a rebuttal, (e.g., Daniel is not a union laborer or even human – perhaps a dog)

 

[2] See the posting “The Perceptual Angle,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, February 23, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2024_02_18_archive.html.

[3] See for example Helene Landemore, “Democratic Reason:  Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many,” Yale University/Department of Political Science, 2024, accessed March 13, 2024, URL:  https://politicalscience.yale.edu/publications/democratic-reason-politics-collective-intelligence-and-rule-many.