INSTRUCTIONAL CONCERNS FOR CONSUMER GOVERNMENT

 

Since the posting, “A Practical Turn” (March 19, 2024),[1] this blog has been promoting the adoption of a consumer government approach to civics education.  The aim of such a change would be to begin the focus of civics from a structural/national view to a more local/engaged view. 

What is in place is a highly individualistic sense to politics and while the change would not counter that sense, it would help shift students’ attention to the concerns of their local communities.  In doing so, civics would undermine the natural rights view and encourage students toward a federated view.  Readers, if they have not done so, are encouraged to use the archive feature of this blog to review those postings.  That would be the postings that develop a rational for this curricular change.

This posting will further comment on the goals and objectives the last posting, “Goals and Objectives for Consumer Government” (April 9, 2024),[2] presented.  It begins by suggesting that school site planning of this proposed curricular change should strive to adopt a resulting course of study that highlights local problems or how statewide, national, or global problems affect local realities.

Such adaptation needs to be done carefully weighing the constraints of the classroom and relevancy of the materials adopted.  Text materials need to be edited to reflect this newer approach (not a simple task), and they would provide a pre-determined set of governmental/political problems.  While it is expected some of these identified problems will be applicable to local conditions throughout the US, others will not.  Naturally, appropriate deletions, changes, and additions should be considered by implementing staff.

To further the “local” effect, where possible, an added goal to this curriculum at the instructional level would be to learn from real life situations or what are known as field experiences.  That is, students are called upon, where appropriate, to actively participate in political activities relevant to a problem or issue under study.  This instruction should be considered or planned as local needs and concerns dictate.

The lesson objectives as presented in the last posting might seem repetitive since one basic decision-making model is being employed.  It should be kept in mind that what has been presented is an initial proposal, admittedly needing further development.  Variety of learning objectives, though, is highly encouraged when planning the cognitive input segments.  Depending on the nature of the individual problems considered, students will need reliable knowledge to make rational decisions based on actual conditions.

          The lesson objectives should reflect the different types of knowledge presented.  For example, it is strongly suggested that objectives emphasize the development of process skills associated with inquiry.  Particularly in problems where there are controversial decisions to be made, then predictive assertions, anticipating the likelihood of consequences, can be investigated through student inquiry that aim at discovering cause and effect relationships.

          These instructional objectives will target the teaching of transferable skills, make disciplinary information functional, and add to the overall open-endedness of real decision-making processes.  And in lessons where controversial decisions are to be made, they further highlight the value component of the lesson.  In that, the lesson plans should first develop affective domain objective – those objectives regarding students’ value positions.

          And finally, cognitive material – those elements regarding factual content – will rely heavily on political science discipline but will not be exclusive to that source.  Other social sciences and respected research sources should be employed for relevant, reliable information.  This might be also useful in discrediting disinformation one can readily find on social media.  All this suggests certain teaching strategies, which is the topic of the next posting.

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[1] URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2024_03_17_archive.html.

[2] URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2024_04_07_archive.html.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES FOR CONSUMER GOVERNMENT

 

Usually in a presentation by curriculum developers of some new curricular strategy, they offer a short rationale for the new plans and then present a list of goals and objectives.  Of late, this blog has been promoting a curricular change in American civics classrooms – a promotion that started with the posting, “A Practical Turn” (March 19, 2024).

That change targets the underlying mental construct that currently guides civics education.  That construct is the natural rights view that focuses on the national electorate and the national government.  Most of the lessons review the major structures, processes, and functions of the national government.  The proposed change would be to a consumer government approach. 

This shift would retain to some degree the individualistic view that the natural rights construct supports.  But it would have students’ focus be aimed at local political realities and, therefore, draw their attention to their communities where most consumer issues are centered, at least as they are experienced by most citizens. 

In other words, this change is seen as a midway step toward a more communal approach that would be provided by the adoption of the liberated federalist construct.  All these terms have been defined in previous postings, but for the purposes here it suffices to know that the natural rights view is individualistic, the federalist view is significantly communal, and consumer government is concerned with citizens, either individually or in groups, seeking services from government.

          Since this blog’s presentation is not formally stating a curricular change at some school district or state education department, the goal has been to just introduce this suggested change to a general audience.  As such, what has been described to this point has been more of an introduction to certain curricular ideas.  Therefore, this informal approach seems more useful for this blog’s purposes.  But it is time to set out a list of goals and objectives.

          Here they are, curricular goals and objectives for a consumer government curriculum.

 

Curriculum goals:

1.     Understand the major structural, procedural, and functional features of the federal, state, and local governments.

2.     Responsibly and rationally propose solutions to a series of individual and/or group political problems or issues.  Each of these problems or issues features a government role and the interests of individuals and/or groups.  They emanate from the following environments:  self/home, neighborhood, city/town, county, state, nation, international.

3.     Appreciate the functional role of academic disciplines – in terms of their findings and research protocols – play in solving related governmental challenges.

4.     Define self-interest in problem/issue situations involving governmental agencies.

 

And for each goal, the following objectives:

 

Goal 1 –

1.     Comprehend the major structures, processes, and functions of the federal, state, and local governments.

2.     List the major components of the federal, state, and local governments.

3.     List the functions of selected components of the federal, state, and local governments.

4.     Give examples of how the major components of the federal, state, and local governments interact.

5.     Describe the major problem issues currently being addressed by the chief components of the federal, state, and local governments.

Goal 2 –

1.     Be able to solve responsibly and rationally a series of individual or group problems involving governments emanating from a variety of environments.

2.     Define problem/issues situations according to the following concerns:  a.  Does the situation affect the interests of oneself or of significant others (e.g., a family member)?  b.  Does the solution of the problem/issue involve the application of an established process entailing no or few options or does it demand investigation, valuing, and choosing from alternatives?

3.     Define chief political and ethical concepts involved with problem/issue situations.

4.     Describe factual information involved with problem/issue situations.

5.     Investigate, using mostly disciplinary content and methods, the problem/issue situation to attain relevant information.

6.     Formulate a course of action aimed at reasonably and ethically solving the problem/issue under study.

Goal 3 –

1.     Appreciate the functional role that academic discipline methods or other responsible research methods and content play in solving problems/issues involving governments.

2.     Accept readily the role of disciplines and of other responsible research protocols’ content and methods.

3.     Verbalize the need for disciplinary and other responsible research protocols in terms of their content and methodologies in decision-making efforts as they deal with people’s interaction(s) with government.

4.     Voluntarily utilize disciplinary and other responsible research protocols’ content and methods in performing unit of study activities.

Goal 4 –

1.     Define self-interest in problem/issue situations involving governmental agencies.

2.     Logically deduce from stated life goals appropriate defensible values as they relate to problem/issue situations under study.

3.     Analyze problem/issue situations and identify the involved self-interests they entail.

4.     Formulate strategies that are conducive to stated values and self-interest claims and logically address the problem/issue situation under study.

5.     Evaluate previous relevant value positions according to new problem/issue situations and information discovered by conducted research.

 

Of course, all of these ideas – including the above goals and objectives – reflect a planning process that is still very much in need of further thought and development, and the next posting will comment on that need.