EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

In this blog, an effort has been to encourage curricular change in the subject area of civics.  In the main, the blog has argued that that change center not so much on instructional processes – its sequence – but on its content – its scope.  But in addition, it has also recognized the “establishment’s” response to the deficiencies in civics.  That would be the NCAA’s publication, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life.[1]  That publication does commit to an instructional process.

And that would be to promote an inquiry approach.  So, to align with this effort on the part of the NCSS, this blog has described and explained an instructional process it calls historical dialogue-to-action (HD-to-A).  To this point, the blog seeks to make a connection:  dialogue (in the form of discussion, argument, or debate) leads to collaborative or communal action. 

And, in addition, whether the instructional process a teacher opts to use is inquiry or didactic, mostly depending on lectures, the blog would argue that a civics course of study should, at least, encourage students to know about and perhaps engage in action one can classify as political engagement.  Instruction should promote the principle that good citizenship and that includes citizens acting toward what is perceived to be the common good.

But one needs to be careful.  Dialogue does not necessarily lead to action and, if it does, it does not necessarily lead to the action one would judge beneficial or logically derived from such talk.  In other words, talking usually serves as a precondition, but other factors play a role in getting people to act in ways that advance what a group – federated or not – wants to accomplish.

          And action, irrespective of its aim, functions to institute a new or maintain an old condition, be it a social, political, and/or economic one.  Change theory serves up a relevant insight.  Those, that study this area of behavior, readily confirm that change or social action can be very complex.[2]  In terms of change, those who are dedicated to facilitating change need to be conscious of that complexity and understand that there is no sure recipe for success.

What a dialogue allows a person to do is voice concerns over obstacles standing in the way of implementing a plan.  Students, within the context of a dialogue, can review their own feelings, those of their fellow students, and those of the community or other significant people who would be involved in such an effort.  These are essential elements of a responsible change strategy.

With that context, this posting shares some ideas of what kinds of actions students can initiate and work to accomplish.  Based on the work of various researchers, the argument for students being actively involved in developing and implementing political-action plans have been made by respected change experts.[3] 

Those scholars have provided examples that have been subject of research addressing political issues such as poverty and racial relations.  Educators have also found value in the instructional benefits action – change efforts – have had on the learning process.  This is in the tradition laid down earlier by John Dewey. 

To summarize Dewey’s concern, most of what schools usually do – exposition and “book learning” – isolates students from real life and that lacks in the potential to instill “the spirit of service.”[4]  At this point, the reader should appreciate the centrality of this concern to federation theory.  The literature of educational studies, such as those that focus on action-learning, usually calls this type of learning experiential learning or experiential education. 

Educational researchers offer empirical evidence to suggest that experiential education succeeds in many of the aims that federation theory highlights.[5]  That is, by students going out and dealing with the people affected by social and governmental policy and practice, they more readily engage emotionally and develop a sense of self in relation to the concerns they are investigating and upon which they are acting. 

Experiential education should not replace classroom instruction, but it can have a place in a civics course.  And in doing so, a teacher needs to be observant of what students are learning in the field.  For example, they can ask:  are students, through such experiences, only heightening existing student biases or having them question those biases?  This is a legitimate concern.

Pamela J. Conover and Donald D. Searing offer an insightful description of this concern:  “while most students identify themselves as citizens, their grasp of what it means to act as citizens is rudimentary and dominated by a focus on rights, thus creating a privately oriented, passive understanding.”[6]  To usher students out of this self-serving and unengaged social view, nothing is more effective than political participation.

But it needs to be focused on relevant, local concerns and accompany it with legitimate questioning that centers student attention to the relevant facts.  Teachers should aim to get students to think of governmental and political realities around them by looking at what immediately affects them and those who live near-by.  Not from a selfish point of view but guided by federalist values. 

More specifically, some activities, such as voting and giving money to political campaigns or to favored advocacy groups, do not do enough; students need to engage in political action aimed at enhancing social capital and civic humanism.  And that, in turn, calls on direct communication and other interactions with those who experience the issue in question.

William Damon, the Stanford educator, further concludes that nothing is more effective in terms of moral education than programs “that engage students directly in action, with subsequent opportunities for reflection.”[7]  And, in a relatively open society, students have a multitude of opportunities to exploit such learning experiences.

These actions can include:  showing up for and taking part in political meetings; scheduling and putting on political meetings which can be platforms to express political opinions or demands; organizing and carrying out fund drives; canvasing an area to gather signatures in support or against bills or other initiatives; seeking to attain membership on political boards; joining or starting a political club; and/or performing political theatrics.

In the next posting, this blog will pick up on these ideas and re-list the HD-to-A action model it introduced in the previous posting.

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[1] National Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life (Washington, D. C.:  NCSS, 2013), accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/c3.

[2] For example, see Kenneth D. Benne, “The Current State of Planned Changing in Persons, Groups, Communities, and Societies” in Planning of Change, eds. Warren G. Bennis, Kenneth D. Benne, and Robert Chin (New York, NY:  Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985), 68-82.  This is but one article in this classic collection of articles regarding change theory. AND a recent work provides case data on successful national efforts – e.g., anti-smoking movement.  See Leslie R. Crutchfield, How Change Happens:  Why Some Social Movements Succeed While Others Don’t (Hoboken, NJ:  John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2018).

[3] “Civic Education,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2013/2007, accessed on October 1, 2017, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civic-education/ .

[4] Ibid.

[5] For example, Janet Eyler, “The Power of Experiential Education,” Association of American Colleges and Universities, n. d., accessed December 11, 2018, https://www.aacu.org/publications-research/periodicals/power-experiential-education .

[6] Pamela J. Conover and Donald D. Searing, “A Political Socialization Perspective,” in Rediscovering the Democratic Purposes of Education, eds. Lorraine M. McDonnell, P. Michael Timpane, and Roger Benjamin (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2000), 91-124, 108.

[7] “Civic Education,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  This source offers a useful summary description of various action options that educators can apply to a civics course.  Interested reader can find this source at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civic-education/ .