[Note: This posting, the previous several postings,
and at least the one to follow are a restatement of what has been addressed
previously in this blog. Some of the
sentences to come have been provided before but the concern is that other
information has been discovered and an update seems appropriate. The blog has not changed the overall message
– that civics education is seriously deficient – but some of the evidence needs
updating.]
Civics education professionals – teachers,
administrators, academics – and other interested parties should not limit their
concerns to just how much governmental/political knowledge students are
attaining in their civics classrooms.
This blog has already claimed that students engaging in civic activities
and the skills they demonstrate in such engagement are also legitimate concerns. In addition, this blog argues that civics
education should dedicate itself to encourage civility and law-abiding
behavior.
On a practical level,
parents and teachers should be and are concerned with the extent the citizenry
maintains a civil society. After all,
should not civics education and social studies in general be about giving the
nation’s youth the knowledge and skills to be pleasant and constructive
citizens and to promote a citizenry disposed to helping fellow citizens? Upon reflection, different people might have
differing views on this question.
A look back is helpful. Many television pundits, early in the
financial crisis which began in 2008, speculated that the burdens associated
with this downturn would result in great changes in social behavior. Americans would be less materialistic, less
consuming, less narcissistic, and more inclined to save, or so they said.
Initially, media reported that
savings rates by Americans increased, although the level of debt is still very
high and saving rates cannot be considered high (circa 6 to 8%).[1] Perhaps, the pundits went on, these changes
will lead the nation to become more empathetic and, in turn, a more civic
minded people. Time will tell, but ten
years later, one can describe Americans as not being empathetic and tolerant of
diverse ideas. Instead, what one reads
currently is a rise in tribalism.[2]
Unfortunately, economic challenges
oftentimes lead to divisiveness and extreme politics. One can judge whether the current level of
political discourse is more civil or not.
And to add to the mix, the US economy has improved greatly in the last
few years, and people are now seemingly reverting to the more self-centered
mode of economic behavior that characterized the American public prior to the
financial collapse.
Yes, there are still lingering
consequences of that economic downturn – some like the maldistribution of
income and wealth which predated the collapse – but the times are getting
better, albeit incrementally. The
unemployment rate is low, and the stock market is in record territory. Perhaps, what one sees currently in terms
civic and law-abiding behavior is returning to historic trends.
Starting in the 1990s, there was a
sense that social behavior was becoming too uncivil. This sense was reflected in the writings of
social commentators across the political spectrum. Citizens in general seemed concerned over the
low levels of civility being manifested in contemporary American life, ranging
from the lack of social etiquette to outright criminal behavior.
Commentators ranging from Hillary
Clinton, on the left, to Michael Novak, on the right, expressed such
sentiments.[3] It stood to reason that if teachers and
parents were charged with promoting among their students or children a
disposition for civil behavior,[4] a broad
based concern among these adults would have developed and they would have
called for action that addressed this lack of civility.
In addition, academics from the field
of social education would also have voiced focused commentary over this
situation. Instead, there seemed among
these practitioners, scholars, and even parents to be little written or
discussed that indicates any central consideration for these conditions.[5]
Of course, incidents such as the
Columbine and other school shootings caused a great deal of concern over the
short term, but there does not seem to be a sustained professional response
from educators to the lack of civility that many in the rest of the scholarly
community saw as plaguing the nation.
Recently, this writer had a
conversation with a prominent government official of a major American urban
area. He asked the official how things
were in his jurisdiction. The official
said crime was drastically down, but the big problem was traffic. Having a bit of knowledge of that area, this
writer said that that urban area’s major problem is a lack of civility, but
this is not an issue that would even be considered as a governmental
problem.
This fact reflects a great deal about
how Americans see government and, in turn, civics education.[6] Areas of concern
that should interest people should include:
how should normative questions of citizenship be handled in our classrooms? Is the whole notion of imparting a view of
civility a legitimate role for civics teachers to play? If so, what is the best method of presenting
such lessons given concerns over indoctrination and the like?
Of note along this line
of thinking, one can cite an incident early in President Obama’s
presidency. He offered a “beginning of
the school year” message to be made available to schools around the
country. A clamor arose. Was this an attempt by the government to
impose a political message on our youngsters?
Of course, such
developments must be judged against the political climate of a given time – a
similar outrage would probably arise if Trump provided such an offer. But the underlying concern of undue
governmental influence on the political and civic beliefs of its citizens is a
real and ongoing concern.
The question of whether civility is a
legitimate topic for civics education in public schools or publicly funded
schools might be a touchy one for some. When one gets into issues of civility,
one roams into normative questions: what
is proper and improper behavior? Do
public schools have the responsibility to impart appropriate values?
This whole question of values
education deserves a lengthy treatment and this blog occasionally addresses it,
but here, it just makes the general comment that schools, even public schools,
do have a responsibility to deal with the normative questions related to
civility. They definitely have a role
even if they do not see themselves as having one.
Back in the 1960s (and the decade or
so to follow), a set of scholars who attempted to influence what is taught in
schools had the notion that the schools’ role was not to totally ignore values
questions in the classroom, but to present them in the form of dilemmas. These dilemmas were to be jumping off points,
or springboards (using curricular jargon), to classroom discussions in which
students would investigate options to the dilemmas and arrive at personal
decisions that could be evaluated using reasonable standards.
The student was to take ownership for
his or her decision regarding a given dilemma.
For example, a dilemma might concern: whether or not an indigent person should steal
medication for an equally indigent dying relative?[7] Educators that opted for this type of
approach did not aim to instill a value, but to have students reflect on their
values and be called upon to explain and defend them.
Or there was the jurisprudential
approach advanced by Donald W. Oliver and James P. Shaver who used the value
statement known as the American Creed and offered by Gunnar Myrdal in his
famous, 1944, book, The American Dilemma.[8]
Unfortunately, such a strategy reflected
in both of these efforts and known as values clarification, in practice led to
unwanted consequences. Students
oftentimes did not care about the dilemma before them, even if the issue was
highly important. Instead, a sense of
relativism developed, resulting in students becoming indifferent.
This was especially true of the
materials emanating from Louis E. Raths and Sidney B. Simon’s work. Since the dilemmas were presented as case
studies describing either real or fictional characters, too often students
would simply adopt the attitude that the issue was the business of only those
involved and did not deserve their efforts to “solve” the problem.[9]
Then there were teachers, ill-trained
in implementing this strategy, who would not refrain from communicating their
own opinions, making these offerings the “right” answers. Or there were teachers who would shy away
from the whole idea of presenting dilemmas either because they felt unqualified
or found the whole notion of open-ended values instruction ill-advised. All in all, the strategy did not meet with
much success and it has generally, through the years, been abandoned.
What remained was an
almost total abandonment of handling value issues in the classroom, at least in
a thought-out fashion. This left a
vacuum that was filled by two sources.
One has been the all-pervasive media and its implied values.[10] The other has been the young people
themselves. This latter source was often
played out in the context of a youth culture becoming ever more pervasive,
especially in large urban comprehensive high schools. The result:
a highly narcissistic and self-absorbed youth population.[11]
This posting shares a
historical view. The next posting will
take up a more current reportage of this issue of civility without disregarding
that history. Unfortunately, in terms of
civility, things seem to be getting worse and the inability of civics education
to address this challenge can be seen as a contributing factor in itself.
[1] “United States Personal Savings Rate,” Trading Economics, n. d., accessed April
21, 2019, https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/personal-savings .
[2] Jonah Goldberg, Suicide
of the West: How the Rebirth of
Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American
Democracy (New York, NY: Crown
Forum, 2018).
[3] Don E. Eberly, “Introduction: The Quest for a Civil
Society,” in Building a Community of
Citizens: Civil Society in the 21st Century, ed. Don E. Eberly (Lanham,
Md.: University Press of America, Inc.
1994).
[4] Michael B. Lybarger, “The Historiography of Social
Studies: Retrospect, Circumspect, and Prospect,” in Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning, ed.
James P. Shaver (New York, NY: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1991), 3-15.
[5] Jean M. Twenge and W. K. Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement (New
York, NY: Free Press, 2009).
[6] The urban area in question has been lately reported
to be ranked as the rudest urban area in the nation. This finding was reported by the magazine Leisure and Travel.
[7] Louis E. Raths, Merrill Harmin, and Sidney B. Simon, Values and Teaching (Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co., 1966).
[8] Donald W. Oliver and James P. Shaver, Teaching Public Issues in the High School
(Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company,
1966).
[9] See for example James D. Hunter, The Death of Character: Moral
Education in an Age without Good and Evil (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000).
[10] Neil Postman, Amusing
Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in
the Age of Show Business, (New York:
Penguin Books, 1986).
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