In a recent article that gives an overall account of how
effective our current efforts in civics education are, Kathleen Hall Jamieson
forms a set of conclusions. These conclusions are:
1) neither
the federal government nor the states have made high-quality civics education a
priority; 2) social
studies textbooks may not adequately convey the knowledge or facilitate the
development of the skills required of an informed, engaged citizenry; 3)
consequential differences in access and outcomes between upper- and lower-class
students persist; 4) cutbacks in funding for schools make implementation of
changes in any area of the curriculum difficult; and 5) the polarized political
climate increases the likelihood that curricular changes will be cast as
advancing a partisan agenda.[1]
I have in this blog discussed many of these states of
affairs, but one I have not addressed is number 5, the effect our current
polarization has had and which directly draws attention to the challenges of
changing our curricular offerings.
Let us say you are a parent, a teacher, a school official, or
a national leader who is convinced that our civics offerings have to
change. There are, of course, many
political obstacles facing you. The most
obvious obstacle is that those whose power is dependent on the status quo and,
therefore, will view any meaningful change as threatening, will likely be
against you. But let us further say that
a proposed change becomes popular – oh, perhaps federalist ideals become the “in-thing”
– and it is politically advantageous to adopt and attempt to implement the sort
of curricular changes that are promoted in this blog. Does that guarantee a successful change? No, it does not.
Why not? The main
problem is that what is being proposed includes not only changing textbooks –
which, by the way, I don’t suggest doing – but also changing how people
basically do their jobs at the school site.
What is being promoted in this blog, can be implemented to varying
levels of change. It could simply mean
that teachers consider different concerns when they prepare their lessons. For the teacher who simply follows the
textbook, this level could be challenging.
As I have explained in earlier postings, the prevalent textbooks in the
field are based on a natural rights perspective in the content and format they
employ. For the teachers who follow the
content, page after page, of the assigned textbook, all of a sudden they are
being asked to impose a different perspective on that content. Whether those professionals are prepared for
such a task is more a catch as catch can type of situation. Some are sophisticated enough; some are
not. Therefore, in-service training, an
expensive and time consuming proposition, would have to be part of the change
effort. But further, I would consider that
what is being proposed is transformational in nature; that is, it calls on
teachers to change not only their objective view of the subject matter, but
more likely, a normative shift as well.
This could be assisted by, to the degree it exists, the popular call for
such a change. But popular whims come
and go. Early in my career, I
experienced the popular concern over the Soviet threat as spurred on by their
launch of Sputnik. By the time I was teaching,
just a few years into that period, the fear of Sputnik had been effectively
quieted and with that, all calls for changes in education ceased to be heard.
A heightened level of implementation would call for a school
to change how it was run. A federalist
approach to schooling would count on a shared and collaborative approach to
organizing, planning, and teaching among teachers, teachers and administrators,
and among administrators. To just
comment on one of these collaborative settings, that of teachers, let me report
that from my experience, teachers are very much cloistered when it comes to
their view of their classroom, not their school. The classroom is viewed, by most teachers, as
their domain. As such, they are highly
sensitive to the, in their eyes, illegitimate meddling by other teachers or
abrasive administrators. I write “abrasive”
not due to any personality traits, but by the very nature of what these other
people attempt to do. Therefore, what is
needed in order to effectuate the type of change being sought is a change of
heart – not just of what is believed to be true, but what is believed and felt
should be true.
Now let’s get real. As
Jamieson points out, we are in very divisive times. I believe that one reason for this condition
is our overall view of government and politics, that of the natural rights
construct. This has been explained
previously in this blog. Our current
presidential race demonstrates sufficient evidence of this partisan divide
which has also characterized our inability to meet many of our national,
political needs and demands.
Negotiations and compromise have almost become impossible to achieve
even when it is mutually advantageous for all sides to agree. To agree would hand success to the opposite
side and, if one is of the opposition party, would help improve conditions
which reflects well on the party in power.
Again, a change that might threaten such partisan environment will not
be welcomed and will be judged suspiciously.
It will be evaluated by the standards set by any supportive ideology
either side might hold. Federalist
thought will probably be interpreted by the left as a belief system supporting
parochial, bigoted life views which it is not.
The right would see it as a challenge to individual prerogatives and
heightened governmental intrusions which is true to a limited degree. As proposed in this blog, the liberated
federalism construct – the proposed construct – has been presented as a
synthesis between natural rights and critical theory. As such, there are aspects of this proposed
construct that are seen positively by either side of the political divide, but
more important in a partisan environment, are seen as antithetical to cherished
beliefs. Consequently, under our current
conditions, any attempt to shift our curricular content toward a federated view
will be a long one in which careful and prescient planning needs to be done if
it is to be successful.
[1]
Jamieson,
K. H. (2013). The challenges facing civic education. Daedalus:
Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Spring, 142
(2), pp. 74-75.
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