UNCHECKED TRENDS

 

A few postings ago, this blog announced that it would issue, online, a “book” that makes available the first one hundred postings of this blog.  Its title is Gravitas:  The Blog Book, Volume I.  To access it, the reader is guided to use the archive feature of this blog and look up the posting entitled “Starting It Off” which was the entry dated September 24, 2021.  That posting shared this blog book’s “Introduction” as a teaser.

These one hundred postings are no longer listed in this blog’s archive.  They, for this newer presentation, have been reedited and introduce the reader to the aims of this blog and a rationale for why it was started.  This might be helpful to readers who have recently become aware of this blog or for long time readers who might find it useful to become reacquainted with what this blog sets out to do.

          If the reader wishes access to the “book,” he/she can use the following URL to do so; that is, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zh3nrZVGAhQDu1hB_q5Uvp8J_7rdN57-FQ6ki2zALpE/edit or gain access through the gateway posting, “A Digression,” that can be accessed through the URL, http://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/ and then look up the posting for October 23, 2021.  There, one finds not only a link to this blog book but other works by this blogger supplementing the books he has published.

          And while considering past efforts, this blogger has been motivated to look at some of his long-ago writings.  Of interest, from 1998, is the following:

 

In the last forty years [now sixty years], according to some noted writers, there has been a growing awareness that America’s stock in community and social trust has been waning.  Civility, or a civil society, as measured by sociological factors and reported in the popular press, [has] particularly affected the younger population of the nation.  The growing awareness and interest in a civil society [have] had a rippling effect on the welfare of the nation and of the young people in question.[1] 

 

He then ties this sentiment to the goals of or the reasons for civics education and, therefore, signifies those social studies professionals, with their commitment to citizenship education as a primary goal.  They cannot ignore the deteriorating effects these social trends represent.

And what has happened since these concerns were shared?  The political landscape has become extremely polarized, and as this blog and just about every interested venue have reported, incivility and other forms of antagonistic social behavior have seen a constant uptick of activity.  One finds parents verbally abusing school board members, people who have expressed political opinions being threatened with physical violence, and this past weekend, NBC News reported increased levels of violence in the nation’s schools.[2] 

Yes, crime rates among young people did experience a drop from 2000 to 2012, but there has been an uptrend in more recent years, and one should remember that at the turn of the century (into the 21^st century), those numbers were peaking as compared to historical trends. 

The U. S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) reports, “The juvenile murder rate reached its lowest level in 2012, 84% below the 1993 peak; since 2012, the rate increased 27% through 2018 (from 2.2 to 2.7 per 100,000 youth), then declined 6% (to 2.6) by 2019.”[3]  As one can judge, crime among the young still reflects a serious civil problem in this nation.  A telling report can be found in the OJJDP site, “Age-Specific Arrest Rate Trends.”[4]  There, youth crime rates as opposed to other age brackets are highlighted and reveal how augmented the rates of crime are among the younger age groups.

Back in 1998, youth crime was getting a lot of concern.  This blogger back then stated various statistics that reflected the reason for this concern; for example, “Juvenile (10- to 17-year-olds) arrests rose from just over 300 per 100,000 in 1986 to about 500 per 100,000 in 1994 …”  All of this concern found its expression in making school sites out to be hostile places.  Today, this hostility is taking other avenues. 

Now, this blogger while writing this posting can see on television parents bringing very animated complaints – even threatening violence – over such issues as “critical race theory,” “masking” policies, and vaccination requirements.  School board meetings have drawn the attention of national media.  Throughout all of this, what one does not sense is a communal atmosphere. 

What one does find is a consumer-oriented populace that is going to those meetings not to find a mutual resolution to the problems they face, but to express a tone of disgruntled customers about this public service.  Human endeavors, especially if they are taken on in the public stage – or even in the public arena – cannot be successful without taking into account the need for communal approaches.  While this can be measured in matters of degree, the current social levels of community one generally sees are historically low.  This could be one’s observation back in 1998 as well as today.

Here is what a recent Pew Report[5] claims:

·      All types of communities face both common problems and those characteristics of the various types one finds in America (that being urban, suburban, and rural types)

·      Local problems include those associated with race, socio-economic status, and demographic factors (not so much geography)

·      Both in urban and rural communities, drug addiction as an observed problem is ranked highly (judged so at a rate of 50% and 46% respectively)

·      In all three types, people cite concern over affordable housing, levels of poverty, rates of crime, and especially among urban dwellers, the quality of public-school education – concern about these areas are cited by residents from a 30% range to a 50% range

Of course, there are those areas of concern significantly felt by one type of community as opposed to the other types.  For example,

 

Some problems stand out as being particularly acute in rural areas. Rural residents are significantly more likely than those living in urban or suburban areas to say the availability of jobs: 42% of rural residents say this is a major problem in their community, compared with 34% of urban and 22% of suburban residents. Rural residents are also significantly more likely to say access to public transportation is a major problem where they live.[6]

 

Of late, communities are facing two very daunting challenges, that of social media and, of course, the covid pandemic.  They have heightened the effects of a social/political cultural influence favoring the natural rights view.

          That view, as this blog has argued repeatedly, acts to undermine a community by holding many of the supportive beliefs and dispositions – communal, collaborative, and willingness to compromise – as illegitimate or naive in too many settings.  This anti-community bias undermines this nation’s federal foundation.  In practical terms, it is adding gas to the polarization fire.

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[1] Robert Gutierrez, The Usefulness and Appropriateness of a Federalist Perspective as a Theoretical Construct for the Study of Government and Civics at the Secondary Level (Tallahassee, FL:  The Florida State University (a dissertation):  1998), 1.

[2] “Kids under Pressure,” NBC Nightly News, October 31, 2021.

[3] “Juvenile Arrest Rate Trends,” OJJDP (n.d.), accessed November 1, 2021, https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID=qa05201 .

[4] “Age-Specific Arrest Rate Trends,” OJJDP (n.d.), accessed November 1, 2021, https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/qa05301.asp .  By way of comparison, take into account this  excerpt from a 1974 source.  It states:

The rate of delinquency cases (the number of cases per 1,000 child population) ages 10-17 was an estimated 37.5 in 1974 compared to 34.2 in 1973. From 1973 to 1974, the increase in the delinquency rate was approximately 9 percent as compared to an increase of 1.8 percent from 1972 to 1973. Between 1960 and 1974, the rate increased from 20.1 to 37.5 per 1,000, representing an 86 percent increase in 14 years.

See Jacqueline Corbett and Thomas S. Vereb, “Juvenile Court Statistics, 1974,” (n.d.) accessed November 1, 2021, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/148122NCJRS.pdf .  Of note is that statistics are based on a per 1,000 rate as opposed to a per 100,000 rate. 

[5] Kim Parker, Julian Menasce Horowitz, Anna Brown, Richard Fry, D’Vera Cohn, and Ruth Igielnik, “4. Views of Problems Facing Urban, Suburban and Rural Communities,” Pew Research Center (May 22, 2018), accessed November 1, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/views-of-problems-facing-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/ .

[6] Ibid.

AND THE MATERIALS

 

[Note:  This posting is a continuation of a series of postings that addresses what a civics teacher preparation program should include.  If not read, the reader is encouraged to check out the previous postings in this series that began with the posting on September 28, 2021, entitled “Prime Reason.”]

And then there is one: the last of five elements of a viable teacher preparation program especially for civics teachers in public schools.  That element is:

 

Element Five:  A program that identifies civics classroom materials and curricular approaches that address and enhance the other four elements of a viable teacher preparation program.

 

This will not take too many more comments since, in essence, this last element simply aims to put in place what the other elements advance.  And a viable way to describe what is being called for is to review what the blogger attempted to do in his FSU days in his teacher preparation, inquiry course.

          His students in that course were expected to make presentations on three reputable inquiry models.  At that time, the three were the Engle and Ochoa model, the jurisprudential model, and the Massialas and Cox model.  Today, the list would be different; for example, this blogger presents a model in his book, Toward a Federated Nation.  In addition to those prior models, the students were also presented with the “We the People …” materials from the Center for Civic Education.

          In all of these, students were/are asked to discuss the models and materials in relation to the other elements previously described.  As the development of the course continues, the instructor should add other published materials for the students to analyze.  This blogger is currently writing a book that looks closely at the two major textbooks high schools currently employ:  Magruder’s American Government[1] and Glencoe United States Government:  Democracy in Action.[2]

          By way of a teaser, that review makes the following claims:

 

·      The books offer its mostly descriptive content to students in extremely objectified language.  In line with scientific efforts, that language avoids any value or attitudinal positions regarding its content.

·      The chosen information, though, reflects what is currently debatable or controversial in American society.  Given the language used in these books, that reportage does not explicitly state this editorial bias, but given what is included, one cannot find all of those choices as coincidental.  In short, the effort of these books is to inform future voters about what the writers of those texts believe will be the issues that students will confront as adults.

·      While many of the chosen issues can be analyzed and debated in terms of how they relate to justice or how they advance or detract from a civil society, the books tend to avoid questioning along those concerns.  Yes, there are exceptions, but they are passing on bits of information or inquiries without much focus placed on them.[3]

·      By providing information that informs future voters about what will possibly affect their “consumer” interests, the texts naturally portray an individualistic approach to this study of politics.  Of course, as with any reportage of politics, one must mention collective or communal arrangements at some point.  But the reflected aims do not center on what advances or hurts the common advantages of those arrangements, either in how highlighted issues are relevant to common causes or how citizens have entailed obligations regarding those issues. 

·      And finally, and this is the qualification alluded to earlier in the book, Glencoe differs from Magruder to the extent that the former attempts to adopt the methodology of behavioral political science.[4]  Glencoe, with its inclusion of raw data and inquiry questioning, reasonably mimics what political scientists do – but is gauged to the sophistication of its audience, that being high school students.  But in no way do the textbooks pick up the challenge that Daniel Elazar’s aims[5] represent.  The books are mostly silent on issues of justice or civility.

 

Overall, therefore, these books, if used – and the likelihood is very high that they will be used – need to be extensively supplemented in order to meet what the elements highlight.  A viable preparation course addresses the main obstacles to accomplishing meaningful civics education in the nation’s schools.  It warns prospective teachers that their social studies classroom is not an isolated reality.

          It encourages them to boldly address what might be for their students unpopular ideas or issues.  In addition, the presentation provides a tool to analyze curricular packages and materials.  By juxtaposing the two continuums presented earlier in this series – egocentric to universal and scientific/technical to holistic – one can mentally gauge the various material products one encounters.

          The mental presentation identifies some very basic concerns.  They indicate that in order to be successful in one’s classroom and revitalize a commitment to viable civics education, one must address some very fundamental attributes of the nation’s collective and individual existence.  The extent of what one finds currently in the nation’s political landscape – its problems and issues – unfortunately has seeped into issues of legitimacy both in the eyes of parents and the nation’s student population.

          So, to finish this series, here are the five elements:

 

Element One:  A viable teacher preparation program needs to make clear that civic preparation is not only a foundation of civics education or even social studies, but also of all public education and of responsible private educational programs as well.

Element Two:  A preparation program identifies both the challenge presented by the commodification of education and the popular culture that supports such commodification by describing it, explaining it, and evaluating it.

Element Three:  A program that imparts the teaching skills that allow those perspective teachers to conduct curriculum strategies that instruct children and adolescents in the civic knowledge and skills suitable to their developmental level and to the civic challenges of their community, state, and nation.

Element Four:  A program that couches, primarily through civics education but radiating throughout a utilized curriculum, an instructional approach in moral terms.  And …

Element Five:  A program that identifies civics classroom materials and curricular approaches that address and enhance the other four elements of a viable teacher preparation program.

 

Enough said.

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[1] William McClenaghan, Magruder’s American Government (Florida Teacher’s Edition) (Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson, 2013) AND Daniel M. Shea, Magruder’s American Government (Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson, 2019).

[2] Richard C. Remy, Glencoe United States Government:  Democracy in Action (New York, NY:  McGraw-Hill/Glencoe, 2010).

[3] For example, in Glencoe’s coverage of economic politics, an editorial cartoon appears in which three fish of various sizes are depicted.  The smallest fish states, “There is no justice in the world,” as it is about to be eaten by the midsized fish.  The midsized fish says, “There is some justice in the world,” as it is about to be eaten by the large fish.  And, of course, the large fish says, “The world is just.”  This example is in the textbook, in the opinion of this blogger, more for its humor than its concern for justice.  See Remy, Glencoe United States Government, 718.

[4] This account dedicates a bit of space (see appendix chapter) to reviewing what constitutes behavioral studies, especially in political science. 

[5] Elazar’s aims for political science are pursuing justice, discovery of factors affecting political behavior, and promoting civil society.

MORAL TERMS IN INSTRUCTION

 

[Note:  This posting is a continuation of a series of postings that addresses what a civics teacher preparation program should include.  If not read, the reader is encouraged to check out the previous postings in this series that began with the posting on September 28, 2021, entitled “Prime Reason.”]

Just to be clear, the last posted entry of this blog was a “digression,” that is, an interjected bit of information for readers who have secured a book this blogger has had published, Toward a Federated Nation.  That book, through its end/footnotes refers to supplemental chapters or essays augmenting, clarifying, or otherwise further explaining an aspect of that book.  It also does the same for an upcoming book this blogger is planning to get published.

          As for the current path this blog has taken, this posting continues what the series of postings has been addressing.  It continues reviewing a list of five elements this blogger believes a teacher preparation program should include.  The blog is up to element four.  It is,

 

Element four:  A program that couches, primarily through civics education but radiating throughout a utilized curriculum, an instructional approach in moral terms.

 

Perhaps the reader by now – if he/she has been reading the various entries of this series – has decided where this blogger stands in relation to the cultural wars.  Let him be clear; he profoundly respects and supports the constitutional provisions for the separation of church and state.  He fully supports the obstacles against proselytizing in the nation’s public schools.  But that does not mean the nation should have a civics education that pretends to be neutral on values and morals.

          For one thing, that is not what the nation has today.  Under the guise of taking a hands-off posture to value questions or positioning, current civics curricular strategies leave it to individual students to determine what values they choose to adopt or develop.  This blogger has called such a posture a natural rights position.  While ostensibly neutral, in actuality, such a curricular stand is promoting capitalist values. 

What determines “goodness” or “badness” revolves around what sells on any given day or season.  Goodness is what is popularly considered good, and badness is what is popularly cast as evil or immoral.  But if an educator believes such an approach is not only counterproductive, it is at some level dictating the nation’s lack of morality or abundance of amorality.  But what is one to do about this state of affairs?

This blogger believes that public schools can teach a more substantive moral position.  When advocating such a stance, the immediate concern one hears is whose values and morals should be adopted?  This blogger believes an American answer to such a question – especially when directed toward civic concerns – should be that of the founding fathers, expressed in their profound wisdom by what they expressed in relation to the nation’s founding documents.

To explain, one is assisted by categorizing what those patriots produced in both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.  So, for example, the structure of the US Constitution makes it a compact.  This structure comes from the covenants (a form of a compact) that organized congregational churches in colonial times and, in turn, originated from Judeo traditions.

Covenants are documents that contain solemn pledges of unity in which the pledged parties swear to uphold the provisions of the covenant, irrespective of what any of the parties might or might not do.  A covenant calls on God to witness such unions.  The broader category, the compact, is such a pledge but does not call on God to be a witness. 

As the political scientist, Donald Lutz,[1] points out, an analysis of the founding documents from the time of the Mayflower Compact (which is a covenant) point out that the founding framers of the nation’s republic were very conscious of this meaning.  That is why one treats the Constitution with such solemnity.

A closer view, though, brings out a very important development.  The Declaration of Independence is a covenant.  The United States Constitution is a compact.  There is no mention of a higher power in the Constitution.  The only mention of religion, in effect, limits its influence while protecting it from government interference.  This blogger believes that the founding fathers were admonishing their posterity with the words “to promote a more perfect union” to create a moral foundation based on a secular morality.

Such a claim can be controversial.  This secular morality is not meant to interfere with the general sense of morality emanating from established religions but is to be one which the civic public could count on no matter what the personal moral beliefs of an individual might be.  While the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, establishes the basis for the nation’s law, not the nation’s general sense of morality, in doing so it also reflects who Americans are as a people, what their constitution (with a small “c”) is, and their basic cultural beliefs are. 

As this blogger, in his teaching days, tried to convey to his high school students, a national constitution is the ideals of a culture meeting the practical realities of a nation.  Central to creating a more perfect union is creating the structure, not only of government, but of a society that promotes its own survival and advancement.

The criteria defining advancement are determined by the posterity of the founding generation.  Within that mandate, one can determine from experience certain principles that need to be respected in order for survival and advancement to proceed.  These principles can be expressed in terms of values.  They would include liberty, equality, justice, loyalty, a disposition to work in communities, private property, honesty, and so forth.[2]

Civics education should be based on a definite set of values not from those in power deciding what they should be, not from religious theology, but from a non-ending study of what has led societies to survive and advance.  One reads of such a study when one considers the references that the nation’s founding generation made in its pamphlets and other written works. 

In similar fashion, one should not be shy about the nation’s moral commitment to the principles of the Constitution, particularly to its invitation – or is it its expectation – for the nation to engage in this moral process, which in part is very settled and in part is open to debate and discussion.  And with that spirit, one can approach the day-to-day challenges civics teachers face and that their preparation to be teachers should have prepared them to tackle – which is the topic of the last element and fleshed out in the next and last posting of this series.

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[1] Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge, LA:  Louisiana State University Press, 1988).

[2] Robert Gutierrez, “Rekindling Concerns over Moral Politics in the Classroom,” The Social Studies, 92, 3 (2001), 113-119.

A DIGRESSION

 

[Note:  As the reader might notice, this posting is being posted outside of the usual schedule this blog follows.  Its purpose is to inform a directed reader on how to gain access to supplemental readings to which this blogger’s published works refer, highlight, or otherwise cite.  This posting will be referred to in future postings and, in all likelihood, will be amplified as this blogger adds to his published book list.

          As of this initial date, October 23, 2021, he has had one book published.  That is Toward a Federated Nation.  Hopefully, a second book is just beyond the horizon as it is in the final editorializing phases.  That second book, From Immaturity to Polarized Politics, is included in the following listing.  A reader who is wishing to read or look at one of the referred supplemental works need only click on the noted URL to gain access.

            Lastly (for now), there is a "book" of the first one hundred postings of this blog.  Its title is Gravitas:  The Blog Book, Volume I.  The designation, "Volume I," assumes there will be other volumes and that will be the case at some future date.  Volume I is found online and its URL is indicated below.

          By way of explaining this mode of access, this blogger believes typing the short URL to this blog site is not as burdensome as typing in the longer URLs that the listings below indicate.]

 

In the works of Robert Gutierrez there are references to online sites.  Those sites have supplemental information that further describes or explains what the works claim or argue.  If interested in these added information sources, a reader can scroll down this site, find the work he/she is reading, and then choose the specific site he/she is seeking.  For example, if the reader is reading Toward a Federated Nation and wants to read the supplemental entry regarding the Opioid Crisis, he/she only need to click – as indicated below – the following URL, https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=CED163627385DD3C!11635&ithint=file%2cdocx&app=Word&authkey=!AFhwqIF3ZhONVK8 .  That will allow the reader to gain access to the informational supplement entitled, “FACTOIDS AND INSIGHTS DESCRIBING THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC.”

 

Online sites listing factoids and insights of topics in Toward a Federated Nation

Submitted by Robert Gutierrez,

In the book, Toward a Federated Nation, a number of online sites are provided.  Each contains information relating to the various topics of that book.  Below is a listing of those sites’ URLs.  They are listed here for convenience.

Opioid Crisis

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=CED163627385DD3C!11635&ithint=file%2cdocx&app=Word&authkey=!AFhwqIF3ZhONVK8

 

History of Tort Cases

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=CED163627385DD3C!11777&ithint=file%2cdocx&app=Word&authkey=!AHB4SPIeFYPBjQY

 

Foreign Trade and Job Availability

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=CED163627385DD3C!11686&ithint=file%2cdocx&app=Word&authkey=!ALoSywwk4uB2QlI

 

Foreign Currency Simulation

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=CED163627385DD3C!11686&ithint=file%2cdocx&app=Word&authkey=!ALoSywwk4uB2QlI OR the PDF file, https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=CED163627385DD3C&id=CED163627385DD3C%2117469&parId=CED163627385DD3C%21104&o=OneUp

 

In the book, From Immaturity to Polarized Politics, a number of online sites are provided.  Each contains information relating to the various topics in that book.  Below is a listing of those sites’ URLs.  They are listed here for convenience.

“How Effective is Civics Education?”

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=CED163627385DD3C!11783&ithint=file%2cdocx&app=Word&authkey=!AHFo6PFBnpUkePw

 

“(Online) Appendix Chapter:  The Influence of Political Science on Civics”

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSjZxpifP42VVnhFduKujgUDPJMddmcsh1uRY9DvpNicdYUONOHx56r1jRg4lgxK3ckaiQMJc4Gno0J/pub 

“The Magruder and Glencoe Case”

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSQxMfz-ILTNUq-qUXwCK-VjkQ55HWCY7lj6tCmAaaH53Z2B8jQfmhb_cfvaSbXr-4U6nQb1p4wdLJB/pub

AND

“The Natural Rights’ Effect on Civics Education"

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n__yYGX1AE1zc96JQdaBiVM1JhPpcee6bZ9FHZoA42Y/view

As for the “book,” Gravitas:  The Blog Book, Volume I, that work is found at the site, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zh3nrZVGAhQDu1hB_q5Uvp8J_7rdN57-FQ6ki2zALpE/edit.

WHERE THEY’RE AT

 

[Note:  This posting is a continuation of a series of postings that addresses what a civics teacher preparation program should include.  If not read, the reader is encouraged to check out the previous postings in this series that began with the posting on September 28, 2021, entitled “Prime Reason.”]

Presently, this blog is reviewing five elements of what this blogger believes a teacher preparation program – especially the preparation of social studies and more specifically, civics teachers – should include.  The blog has shared the first two elements and has presented a word or two concerning element three.  That element is:

 

Element Three:  A program that imparts the teaching skills that allow those perspective teachers to conduct curriculum strategies that instruct children and adolescents in the civic knowledge and skills suitable to their developmental level and to the civic challenges of their community, state, and nation.

 

Here, the emphasis is that teachers should be armed with the ability to utilize various instructional strategies.

          Those strategies can be gauged according to two dimensions.  The first is in regard to philosophic positions that one detects in the literature – from behavioral to artistic positions – and the second about how differing approaches assume levels of maturation.  The presentation will now finish its comments on this second factor.

          With maturation, especially as this factor affects challenged, immature segments of the student population, one overarching claim seems to capture one’s attention.  Without effective parental demands, curiosity about academic concerns, or access to unusually skillful teachers (the supply is limited), only relevancy seems to be left.  Therefore, a start with student-based issues (a source identified by Ralph Tyler[1]) seems to offer a reliable source of motivating material.  For example, such a strategy is depicted in the feature film, Dangerous Minds.[2]

          As with philosophic views concerning instruction, this factor of maturation lends itself to a continuum.  At one end, there is an egocentric source and at the other end there are universal sources.  Within the continuum, one has the student, then the society, and finally the subject matter or the discipline.  Underlying this ordered listing one can add the descriptive term, “potential development of the spiritual.”  That is, as one goes to the universal, this potential of spirituality increases (more on this below).

          In the previous posting, this blog suggested that one should approach these options with the disposition to seek a balance.  While a balance means that all three sources for curriculum and instruction are employed to some degree, no matter what level of maturity the student has, most curriculum projects – with their suggested instructional processes – and their materials including textbooks have betrayed a definite bias to seek input from the disciplines.

          At FSU,[3] the methods courses addressed this and instructed their perspective teachers to produce lessons that rectify this deficiency that textbooks represent.  Of course, such an approach calls on teachers to do a lot more work.  The simpler route is to simply lecture on the content in the order that the textbook presents it and use the auxiliary materials that the textbook publishers provide.

          Again, as with the philosophic options, maturation levels and the sources they suggest can be visualized as a graphic continuum.  This venue does not allow a presentation here, but the reader can use a bit of imagination to see, running left to right, the three sources listed from an egocentric end to a universal end.  On such a graphic, one can detect below it a reference to the potential of increased spirituality. 

Again, this last component simply refers to the possibility that as students develop toward the universal, they could increasingly formulate an appreciation of a life force, either religiously or secularly defined.  This sense of kindred spirit adds a motivational foundation for a civic approach to learning.  This relates not only to the content associated with civics education, but also to the content across the whole curriculum.

This seems to be a good place to end this posting – giving a chance for one to consider what it implies for all of education – and approach the next posting ready to take up element four.  That element takes a definite moral turn, an aspect of education that easily gets lost as one considers all the various aspects of that institution.

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[1] Ralph W. Tyler, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1949).

[2] Dangerous Minds is a 1995 American dramatic film.  In an online summary of the film, one finds the following:

Former Marine Louanne Johnson (Michelle Pfeiffer) lands a gig teaching in a pilot program for bright but underachieving teens at a notorious inner-city high school. After having a terrible first day, she decides she must throw decorum to the wind. When Johnson returns to the classroom, she does so armed with a no-nonsense attitude informed by her military training and a fearless determination to better the lives of her students -- no matter what the cost.

John N. Smith (director), Dangerous Minds (Hollywood, CA:  Hollywood Pictures Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckeimer Films, 1995).  For more of an overview, see “Dangerous Minds,” Google (n.d.), accessed October 20, 2021, https://www.google.com/search?q=the+feature+film%2C+dangerous+minds&rlz=1C1RXMK_enUS966US966&oq=the+feature+film%2C+dangerous+minds&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i299.10231j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 .

[3] The previous posting introduced the example of FSU’s teacher preparation program.

MATURING CONCERNS VIS-À-VIS INSTRUCTION

 

[Note:  This posting is a continuation of a series of postings that addresses what a civics teacher preparation program should include.  If not read, the reader is encouraged to check out the previous postings in this series that began with the posting on September 28, 2021, entitled “Prime Reason.”]

To remind the reader, here is the element of a preferred approach to a civics teacher preparation program that this blog is currently considering,

 

Element Three:  A program that imparts the teaching skills that allow those perspective teachers to conduct curriculum strategies that instruct children and adolescents in the civic knowledge and skills suitable to their developmental level and to the civic challenges of their community, state, and nation.

 

 

This element invites an interested party to consider a variety of instructional strategies which were reviewed in the last posting.  They were arranged according to a conceptualized continuum from a scientific/technical end to a non-scientific/non-technical, holistic end.

          Generally, that continuum points out that instruction can vary according to what one expects students’ roles can assume from being passive recipients of information to an active, discovering role to participation in relevant, artistic endeavors.  That posting made two claims regarding how teachers, on a given day, should decide what strategy to employ in conducting a lesson.

That would be, first, that whatever strategy a teacher might employ, so as to be successful; it must engage students in conducting reflective consideration of the content presented or discovered.  Second, that teachers should be familiar with this variety of options and be able to function at each one to best react to the various factors teachers face during the school year.

But there is another concern.  When this blogger was a faculty member at Florida State University, the teacher preparation program in the social science education offerings offered three methods courses:  one, was the basics and taught a traditional mode of instruction, two, a course mostly dedicated to teaching techniques in reading instruction as applied to social studies, and three, a course focused on inquiry instruction.  In this triad, the aim by FSU’s profs was to view the effort in terms of this other concern, that of developmental considerations.

That is, beyond instructional concerns over what level of engagement students should be asked to assume, the belief was that the needs associated with student developmental, or maturity levels should strongly influence what is planned.  In short, that consideration should be a meaningful concern of any civics education program. 

Of course, all discussion regarding developmental theory begins with a consideration of Jean Piaget’s model.[1]  The basic claim of that model relevant to the concern here is the notion that children gain in their ability to think abstractly as they become older or more mature.  Another developmental theorist, Lawrence Kohlberg, provides a model that depicts the developmental stages of moral thinking.[2]

The relevant claim of the Kohlberg model is that children are able, due in part to their ability to think more abstractly, to shift their moral attention from egocentric concerns toward more general and universal moral interests.  One might define maturation in terms of these two dimensions – abstract and moral thinking.  Therefore, one can begin with a realization that young people are cognitively and emotionally moving targets.

Young people go through changes, and they do not do so at the same pace or in a linear progression.  The curricular theorist, Ralph Tyler, borrowing an idea originally developed by Hollis L. Caswell and Ronald F. Campbell [3] in a famous book on curriculum development, popularizes the position that curriculum originates from three sources: the student, the society, and the subject matter or the academic discipline. 

To explain, Tyler argues that one needs to find a balance in the influence that each source exerts.  This insight is very helpful but taking these concerns one step further, one can apply the developmental ideas of Piaget and Kohlberg and conclude that the point of balance should ideally shift as students mature.  That is, in part, younger students or older immature students tend to be very self-centered with a very low-level ability to think abstractly. 

Therefore, at stages when the student is young or highly immature, the balance should actually favor the student – his/her concerns – as the primary source.  Content should revolve around issues that directly affect students such as relations with parents, student rights, the demands of schooling, etc.

As the student matures, issues of society would seem to become more engaging.  Here, issues such as poverty, war and peace, constitutional provisions, etc. can be the sources of instruction.  Finally, the more mature students should be open to issues that originate with the disciplines – history, political science, economics, etc.  The disciplines offer more powerful knowledge and are aimed at solving more universal problems.

Examples of discipline issues might include FED policy on controlling the money supply, the merits of President Jackson’s antagonism toward a national bank, the relative strengths and weaknesses between a strong executive model of governing as opposed to a weak executive model, etc. 

Applying this framework to two curricular approaches with which social studies teachers might be familiar, Project Citizen is one that is more student-centered, while We the People offers an approach that relies on societal issues and begins to incorporate disciplinary knowledge.[4]  At every level in this three stage progression – the student, the society, the discipline – the student is involved with problem solving or issue solving activities or considerations, and what evolves are the sources of those problems or issues.

The use of the progression depicted, from student to discipline, hints at a trade-off.  That is, for those who argue that instruction should be based on issues defined by the disciplines, they not only need to account for the lack of abstract thinking ability among most students, but also for the lack of institutional support facing many older, but immature students who unfortunately reflect certain segments of the nation’s population. 

Due to a variety of reasons (lack of time because of multiple demands, cultural biases that are indifferent or hostile to intellectual pursuits, or just individual indifference), low achieving students, many from low-income families, are noted for having parents who provide low levels of involvement in their children’s education.  These students are also noted for not being taught by the best teachers or being taught in academically demanding school environments.[5]

Without these supports, students are left to their own interests to define those pursuits in which they will engage.  Students need to want to learn something, a motivation that can be spurred from a variety of origins (both internal and external), before they do so. And with that – what should be seen as obvious – insight, this posting will end.  The next posting has a few more ideas to complete this blog’s commentary on element three.

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[1] See Allen C. Ornstein and Francis P. Hunkins, Curriculum:  Foundations, Principles, and Issues (Boston, MA:  Pearson, 2004). 

[2] Lawrence Kohlberg, “The Cognitive-Development Approach to Moral Education,” in Curriculum Planning:  A Contemporary Approach, eds. Francis W. Parkay and Glen Hass (Boston, MA:  Allyn and Bacon, 2000).

[3] Ornstein and Hunkins, Curriculum:  Foundations, Principles, and Issues.

[4] Both programs had quite a bit of popularity at the time of this blogger’s retirement in 2008.

[5] Stefan Thernstrom and Abigail Thernstrom, No Excuses:  Closing the Racial Gap in Learning (New York, NY:  Simon and Schuster, 2003).