A Crucial Element of Democracy

This is a blog by Robert Gutierrez ...
While often taken for granted, civics education plays a crucial role in a democracy like ours. This Blog is dedicated to enticing its readers into taking an active role in the formulation of the civics curriculum found in their local schools. In order to do this, the Blog is offering a newer way to look at civics education, a newer construct - liberated federalism or federation theory. Daniel Elazar defines federalism as "the mode of political organization that unites separate polities within an overarching political system by distributing power among general and constituent governments in a manner designed to protect the existence and authority of both." It depends on its citizens acting in certain ways which Elazar calls federalism's processes. Federation theory, as applied to civics curriculum, has a set of aims. They are:
*Teach a view of government as a supra federated institution of society in which collective interests of the commonwealth are protected and advanced.
*Teach the philosophical basis of government's role as guardian of the grand partnership of citizens at both levels of individuals and associations of political and social intercourse.
*Convey the need of government to engender levels of support promoting a general sense of obligation and duty toward agreed upon goals and processes aimed at advancing the common betterment.
*Establish and justify a political morality which includes a process to assess whether that morality meets the needs of changing times while holding true to federalist values.
*Emphasize the integrity of the individual both in terms of liberty and equity in which each citizen is a member of a compacted arrangement and whose role is legally, politically, and socially congruent with the spirit of the Bill of Rights.
*Find a balance between a respect for national expertise and an encouragement of local, unsophisticated participation in policy decision-making and implementation.
Your input, as to the content of this Blog, is encouraged through this Blog directly or the Blog's email address: gravitascivics@gmail.com .
NOTE: This blog has led to the publication of a book. The title of that book is TOWARD A FEDERATED NATION: IMPLEMENTING NATIONAL CIVICS STANDARDS and it is available through Amazon in both ebook and paperback versions.

Friday, October 13, 2017

ORDER OF PRESENTATION

Okay, how did you do?  For the recurring readers of this blog, this writer gave them an assignment.  In the previous postings, he identified eighteen insights regarding the study of foreign trade and how that trade affects the availability of jobs in the US.  The reason for this listing was that he is developing, in real time, a unit of study that could serve as the final unit of a civics course at the high school level.  The insights identify the bulk of the content the unit will teach.
          In the last posting, he re-identified them, in shorten form, so that they all appear in one place.  The assignment was to determine, after listing them in the order of presentation, which insights should be included as the content components of the actual lesson plans.  Not all insights could probably be used because being a two-week unit, with nine instructional days, there would not be enough time to address all eighteen.  This blog addresses the first of these steps: what will be the order of presentation.
So, along with participating readers, this developer, for this posting, orders the insights and that listing is indicated below.  Does the reader agree with the developer’s ordering of these insights?  Here is that listing, in even more shorten form, and the identified number initially assigned to each insight:[1] 
1.     ninth (post World War II bias),[2]
2.     third (NAFTA, WPO, and TPP),[3]
3.     seventh (liberal policy backfire),[4]
4.     eighth (too long caring about resentment potential),[5]
5.     first (inability to follow the jobs),[6]
6.     fifth (“rise of the rest”),[7]
7.     sixth (Peterson memo),[8]
8.     twelfth (State Department vs. Peterson memo), [9]
9.     eighteenth (the function of floating currency valuations),[10]
10. eleventh (globalization’s benefits to third world countries), [11]
11. thirteenth (“beggar thy neighbor policy”), [12]
12. second (function of technology),[13]
13. fourth (job loss due to aversion to adjust),[14]
14. fourteenth (European pro-market strategies), [15]
15. sixteenth (advanced technology culprit?),[16]
16. tenth (MNCs and TNCs),[17]
17. seventeenth (nurturing domestic businesses),[18] and
18. fifteenth (states and cities competing).[19]
Again, each entry is cited to indicate in which posting – accessible through this blog’s archival feature – one can find a fuller description of the insight plus a lesson idea by which the insight can be “taught.”  In addition, this listing should be an attempt to employ a historical approach.  The aim is to have students develop a narrative of how public policy in foreign trade has evolved over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.  Therefore, the order they are addressed in the teaching of the unit becomes even more important.
The next posting will conduct the elimination of some insights and perhaps begin the actual inclusion of a lesson plan or two.



[1] In terms of the initial numbering, the reader is directed to see the previous posting.  For example, as number 1 here, this insight was the ninth identified insight and it first appears in this blog in the posting entitled “Excessive Marshall Plan Thinking?”  That posting was posted on September 15, 2017.

[2] See “Excessive Marshall Plan Thinking?”, September 15, 2017.

[3] See “Problematic Consequences,” September 5, 2017.

[4] See “Excessive Marshall Plan Thinking?”

[5] See “Excessive Marshall Plan Thinking?”

[6] See “Problematic Consequences.”

[7] See “Counting on a Strong Position Too Heavily,” September 12, 2017.

[8] See “Counting on a Strong Position Too Heavily.”

[9] See “The Face of Globalization,” September 19, 2017.

[10] See “To Be Pro Market or Not,” September 26, 2017.

[11] See “The Face of Globalization.”

[12] See “Restrictive or Liberalized,” September 22, 2017.

[13] See “Problematic Consequences.”

[14] See “Is Globalization Inevitable?” September 8, 2017.

[15] See “Restrictive or Liberalized.”

[16] Wang Wen, “A US-China Trade War Would Cause Huge Damage and Benefit Nobody,” Financial Times, March 27, 2017, accessed September 22, 2017, https://www.ft.com/content/3b49cd2a-10ad-11e7-b030-768954394623 .  See “Restrictive or Liberalized.”

[17] See “The Face of Globalization.”

[18] See “To Be Pro Market or Not.”

[19] See “Restrictive or Liberalized.” 

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