This blog has reported
that current efforts in civics education have been deficient. This has been reflected by un-civic characteristics
of the American public and are evidenced by several problematic indicators. They include:
·
insufficient levels of government and
political knowledge,
·
low levels of political engagement and low
levels of political skills,
·
among those who are engaged, high
indulgence in what is called extreme politics,
·
low disposition to be engaged,
·
low levels of civility,
·
and high levels of criminal behavior as
compared to other nations or to other times in the nation’s history.
While civics instruction
is not the cause of these problems, this writer believes it has been an
enabling force.
In
terms of these problems, the blog attributes an enabling functional role to the
dominance of the natural rights construct in the choosing of civics educational
content. The natural rights view of governance
and politics, which became prominent after World War II, has encouraged a very
self-centered view of citizenship. It
has diminished the more communal view, traditional federalism, that was
dominant up till that post war period.
Previous
postings have provided a historical account on the origins and manifestations
of the natural rights perspective which dates all the way back to the time of
the writing of the US Constitution. It goes on to describe and explain how this
view has grown in influence and has in more recent years affected what has been
taught in the nation’s civics classrooms.
This has been in terms of both content and instructional processes.
The
blog also described and explained the role traditional federalism played by
describing its historical importance in the nation’s development. In so doing, the blog points out that that
construct offers those basic ideas and values that serve as a foundation for
what is being proposed by this blog – a liberated federalism construct.
Finally,
the blog describes this favored and proposed construct. It does this by presenting a federalist moral
code and a review of a federalist political model. That presentation proceeds to explain how the
model is “activated” by reviewing an area of concern that accounts for most
political challenges a federalist approach would address.
That
area of concern is those set of challenges that are a product of inequality as
defined by a federalist designation of two forms of equality: baseline equality and equality of treatment. This latter form is also known as regulated
condition.
What
remains is to take a practical turn in which the blog will demonstrate how the
model and its accompany moral code can be used to develop a unit of study. For the demonstration, this author chooses
the issue of foreign trade and its effect on employment opportunities in the
US. This is timely as it was a
determining concern in how the presidential election of 2016 turned out.
Starting
with the next posting, the blog will begin by reviewing and developing the
social, theoretical view of the issue area in question. This will incorporate those aspects of
federation theory related to the issue area and a more substantive reporting of
what constitutes the known aspects of this issue. For the latter concern, this blog will rely
on a recently published work dedicated to this issue: Failure
to Adjust: How Americans Got Left Behind
in the Global Economy by Edward Alden.
If
this writer were to develop this unit for his own teaching effort, he would use
this source, but would look at other sources as well. Since this current effort is for
demonstration purposes, this will be the sole source. He will take the information provided by this
source and match it up against the concerns that federation theory emphasizes.
After
this initial analysis is complete, he will follow the rough material
development process outlined by Ralph Tyler[1]
which consists of identifying instructional objectives, develop learning
experiences, organize learning experiences, evaluate student performance and
instructional objectives. These steps
will be loosely followed to explain how the plan is developed. This will begin with the next posting.
[1] Ralph W. Tyler, Basic
Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1969/1949).
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