DISADVANTAGES BEGET DISADVANTAGES

The last posting made the point that the historical treatment of African-Americans in this country has posed that group many disadvantages.  To anyone who is familiar with the social/political history of the US, they might react by thinking, “what else is new?”  But what many seem to overlook are the logical consequences of such treatment.  That previous posting left the reader with a riddle.

          The riddle is:  Why is it that African-American students do not benefit in terms of their school performance, to the degree other racial or ethnic kids benefit, by being children of higher income parents?  Yes, they do benefit, but only to a roughly thirty percent level as compared with white children.  They also don’t benefit to the degree Hispanic or Asian children do.  This has led researchers to point out cultural factors as the possible reasons for this shortfall.  In turn, these reports have been highly controversial.

          To begin, distasteful information, if true, needs to be addressed.  Now, one can argue that even if true, it is misplaced, not directly related to the problem at hand, or taken out of context.  But if correlational studies point out a relationship between or among certain factors and when there are ample historical reasons for those factors to be related, policy-makers, wanting to address the related problem, cannot ignore the apparent causal factors.

          Here is what Abigail and Stephen Thernstrom report:

Today most social scientists agree that growing up in a single-parent, female-headed family “is almost always associated with lower educational attainment and more behavioral and psychological problems.”  Those behavioral and psychological problems, the data indicate, include getting into trouble both in school and with the law, dropping out of school, and early pregnancy, as well as depressed academic performance.

          We can expect large racial differences in all of these things, because racial differences in family structure are huge.  Currently, only 37 percent of black children live with two parents, as compared with 77 percent of whites, 65 percent of Hispanics, and 81 percent of Asian Americans.[1]

Also, the Thernstroms report that African-American households have on average three children; while white households have one.  Young black women, 18-years-old or less, have children at a two and a half times more rate then white women of that age and 50 percent more often than Hispanic young women.  Yes, historical disadvantages or, better stated, injustices have their consequences, and many are not direct, but indirect.

Indirect in that they set up the social conditions, seen around the world, that take on such behavior patterns that produce these types of results.  They are not exclusive to African-Americans.  But are the Thernstroms correct; are their numbers duplicated elsewhere?  One commentator who received some criticism – or controversy – was Don Lemon, a TV news opinion show host on CNN.

He reported the negative version of the above numbers; i.e., African-American households have children out of wedlock at a greater than a 72 percent rate.  Just to report what seems to be a related fact, Dom Lemon is an African-American.  This caused a fire-“shower” of criticism.  Noting the controversy, the online news site, Politifact, looked into this claim.

Using data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2010, that online site reported the rates of births in non-marital situations as follows:  Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, 17%; non-Hispanic whites, 29%; Hispanics, 53%; American Indian and Native Alaskans, 73%; and non-Hispanic blacks, 73%.[2]  But “out of wedlock” does not necessarily mean single-parent.

The 2011 Census Bureau with the Annie E. Casey Foundation looked at data that narrowed the above purview.  They looked at “children in single-parent families” – kids under 18 in households with single parents (with perhaps a cohabiting adult).  They found the following:  non-Hispanic whites, 23%; Hispanics, 42 percent; American Indian and Native Alaskans, 53%; non-Hispanics blacks, 67%.  While these numbers are slightly lower, they follow the same pattern.

Of interest to this writer is the comparison between Hispanic and non-Hispanic blacks.  As groups they share some historical factors.  Hispanics are mostly immigrants from lesser developed countries, they initially lack English skills, and their political/economic background are less than ideal when measured against democratic standards.  But their background does not begin to compare with the disadvantages, blacks have faced in American society. 

This writer has had first-hand experience with this, given he is a first generation American from immigrant Hispanic parents.  He along with his parents did have it tough during his early years, but by the time he went to school he can honestly say he did not face any discriminatory treatment.  Perhaps he was fortunate, but from what he saw African-Americans had to go through (a drive through the South of the 1950s was eye-opening); there was no comparison.  And look at the numbers, Hispanics rank high in these two charts.  Conclusion, tough socioeconomic conditions have their consequences.

And to the extent they do, a federated society with its governmental/political institution has a responsibility to issue those policies that effectively address the entailed disadvantages.  The reason Lemon got in “trouble” was he seemed to put the whole onus on blacks and did not address the systemic factors hard enough.

The system – the polity – needs to regulate the economic/political realities these disadvantaged populations have imposed upon discriminated groups.  And no institution needs this type of regulation more than the educational institution, the key to economic success.  One place to start, where it is relevant, is the civics curriculum.

This writer is not an expert in this area; he is an expert in the field of curricular studies, especially civics curriculum.  He is open to being convinced he is wrong in the above argument.  The readers of this blog are invited to express any disagreement with what he expressed in this posting.  For example, the argument does not yet explain the underperformance of blacks within higher income households, but if the above is true, it does provide a context for this issue.[3]

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[1] Abigail Thernstrom and Stephen Thernstrom, No Excuses:  Closing the Racial Gap in Learning (New York, NY:  Simon & Schuster, 2003), 132.

[2] “CNN’s Don Lemon Says More Than 72 Percent of African-American Births Are Out of Wedlock,” Politifact, July 29, 2013, accessed November 7, 2018, https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/29/don-lemon/cnns-don-lemon-says-more-72-percent-african-americ/ .

[3] This issue will be taken up in a future posting.

RACE AS A FACTOR IN SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT

In the last posting, this blog made the case:  parental income affects – at least as correlational studies show – how well their children will do economically as adults years later.  Rich parents tend to have children that will be rich; mid-range income parents will see their children follow suit; and the same can be said for low income parents and their children.  So, one can conclude, class is a factor in determining success.

          How about race?  Does race have an effect, and if so, how much?  Before attempting to answer this question, one should consider:  why ask?  One asks because if race does affect success rates and one supports the federalist value, regulated equality, then that affect should be subject to some regulation.  But this question of race and its effect is not so easy to answer.

          Muddling the effort is how the economy – and the nation’s history – has posed so many obstacles to various minorities.  Of course, that disadvantage has been pre-eminent among African-Americans.  Their history in this nation has been a long string of horrendous mistreatment with slavery, Jim Crow policies, institutional discrimination, deprivation of decent schooling and lack of life-fulfilling employment opportunities. 

And to support such treatment, among the white majority there has been the common belief that blacks are inferior, especially in terms of intelligence.  Given that backdrop, how does one, who believes in federalist values, think or act on the findings of Abigail and Stephen Thernstrom?[1]  They demonstrate the challenge that exists in figuring out what is affecting student success when race is a factor.

First, it is no surprise, given the above outlined history of injustice, that African-Americans, as a demographic group, do not do well when it comes to schooling, key to success.  Of course, there are exceptions of note, but compared to other demographic groups, e.g., whites, Hispanics, Asians, etc., African-Americans rank low.  But, then again, they rank low in income and wealth.  Does that mean the income/wealth factor cause blacks to rank so low in education?  That is, is it race or income that is affecting school performance?

What happens when black kids are compared with white kids, for example, when income is controlled?  That is, how do higher income black kids compare to higher income white kids?  By higher income, of course the reference is to their parents’ incomes.  And how about mid-range income kids and lower income kids from the two demographic groups?

In terms of higher income kids, here is a summary statement by the Thernstroms:

The majority of African-American students are stuck in inferior big-city schools.  But [collected] data … suggest a more sobering conclusion.  Increased movement of black families into suburban communities [where higher income families live] – as desirable as that is – will not solve the problem of black academic underperformance.  It’s not that black kids in suburbia don’t do better than their urban peers [of lower income parents].  They do.  But suburban whites also outperform urban whites, and the gap – the difference in scores between the two racial groups – remains almost unchanged.[2]

In general, among income brackets, the gains whites make as they go up in those brackets, blacks only experience thirty-three percent of those gains.  Or as those writers state it:

The data available to us were not in a form to permit an analysis that would reveal exactly how great the overlap is [among socioeconomic variables[3]], but a number of sophisticated studies of the black-white achievement gap have found that controlling for all the standard measures of socioeconomic status [like residential location] together cuts the black-white gap by only about one-third.[4]

This then is a riddle.  Why don’t African-Americans students experience, as compared to white students, the same upshot in school performance when income and residency has experienced an “upgrade” from lower income levels and inner-city living conditions?  This posting leaves the reader with this question; next posting will further report on the Thernstroms’ findings.

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

[2] Ibid., 128.  These determinations are based on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) testing scores and that deserves further comment, perhaps in another posting.

[3] Variables include parental education attainment, urban-suburban-rural residencies, religious affiliation, age, and the like.

[4] Abigail Thernstrom and Stephen Thernstrom, No Excuses:  Closing the Racial Gap in Learning, 129.

“SUGAR DADDY” OR “MOMMA”

The last posting of this blog addressed the myth that successful people are totally responsible for their success.  Successful people are advantaged by a variety of factors; some are “hidden” advantages and this luck goes unnoticed or unrecognized by them or other people.  But some factors are more visible and have recognized effects.

          Two factors come readily to mind, although some will even refuse to accept their viability in advancing or hindering success.  They are class and race.  This posting looks at the first of these factors, class.  The first question to be addressed is:  does parental income affect or correlate with their children’s ability to garner reasonable income levels?  By reasonable, one can see it as an income level associated with a middle-class lifestyle.

          The Pew Charitable Trust and the Russell Sage Foundation funded research in this area at Stanford University.  Their overall finding, as a result of this research, can be summarized as follows: 

… approximately half of parental income advantages in the United States are passed on to children, which is among the lowest estimates of economic mobility yet produced.  The research also finds that the degree to which income advantages are transferred from parents to children differs across the income spectrum, and that parental income differences benefit children from higher-income families more than those from lower-income families.  The results indicate that opportunity for economic success are far from equally distributed.[1]

One statistic that this study reports demonstrates this lack of opportunity; i.e., children from the 90^th percentile of the population (the top 10%) can expect to make as adults, with their own families, incomes three times greater than the children from the 10^th percentile (the bottom 10%).

          How would one know that this advantage did not exist as an element of this nation’s economy?  Well, if the next generation’s income distribution shows no relationship with the previous generation’s distribution, then one could not attribute parental income as a determining factor.  If this lack of correlation existed, the poor would emanate from families across the income spectrum, the same for those who make mid-range incomes, and the same for those who make high incomes.  

This study calls this measure intergenerational elasticity (IGE).  IGE is expressed as a number from zero (no generational advantage/disadvantage) to one (total generational advantage/disadvantage).  Therefore, any number above zero (and below 1) indicates some level of parental income effecting their children’s eventual income level.

As the result cited above indicates, half parental income advantage is passed to their children and is indicated by the IGE scores of .52 for males and .47 for females.  And these number varies according to the income levels of parents.  The IGE scores shoot up to the lower .60s for parents in the 50^th to 90^th income percentiles.

There seems to be in this study’s findings a gender difference.  Men benefit or are disadvantaged more – i.e., they have higher IGE scores – than women.  When comparing their own incomes, men have 40% higher IGE scores than women.  What also affects women from higher income parents and their IGE scores is their likelihood of marrying men of high-income status; a factor that does not affect men nearly as much.

As often mentioned in this blog, the federalist value, regulated equality, calls for proactive governmental policies to meet these obvious inequalities that, given the above findings, indicate systemic causes.  In that light, this blog favors what the president of the Russell Sage Foundation said in reaction to this study:

The report documents that public policies must do more to level the playing field so that children from low-income families have greater opportunities to compete in the 21^st century economy.  Over recent decades, the rising income and wealth of affluent parents have allowed them to increase investments in their children, from day care through college.  At the same time, wages have stagnated for most workers and low-income families have struggled to pay for routine expenses …[2]

And as for a civics’ national program, it should make sure that students appreciate what consequences result from casting a blind eye to this source of inequality.  If history is any indication, one result is those nations so characterized have experienced extreme politics – segments of the population taking on extreme rightest or leftist beliefs and accompany motivations to act in radical ways.  Sounds familiar?

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[1] “Parental Income Has Outsized Influence on Children’s Economic Future,” Pew, July 23, 2015, accessed October 31, 2018, https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/about/news-room/press-releases-and-statements/2015/07/23/parental-income-has-outsized-influence-on-childrens-economic-future .

[2] Ibid.

THAT’D BE ME

A personal note:  to start this posting, this writer wants to share a conversation he had with a relative.  He, the relative, voiced the opinion that he was responsible for the success he has achieved.  It wasn’t government, it wasn’t community, it wasn’t even family (maybe except for his wife).  He was responsible. 

He was expressing an extreme version of an argument that a person who is well-ensconced in the natural rights persuasion loves to espouse.  That view focuses on the virtues and potentials of the individual – that is a powerful message, an appealing message to many.

          This blog has argued that the natural rights view has become prominent in the American political culture.  While this relative might be expressing the more extreme take on this bias, generally, Americans today have a serious inability to see the error contained in this line of argument. 

This writer, trying not to start a serious disagreement with the relative, did point out that his business interests depended on government services concerning traffic, security, the financial system, on and on.  He responded that that’s why he pays taxes – too much of them – and so, these benefits are well paid for; they are a transaction. 

Yes, he loves his country, but that does not necessarily include the government and, given the general tenor of his comments, that institution is seen as holding an anti-American character.  He expressed these opinions with conviction and confidence – there was little to no doubt in what he was saying.

The writer, Malcolm Gladwell,[1] has something to report regarding this view:

…I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations of success don’t work.  People don’t rise from nothing.  We do owe something to parentage and patronage.  The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves.  But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.  It makes a difference where and when we grew up.  The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we cannot begin to imagine.  It’s not enough to ask what successful people are like, in other words.  It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn’t.[2]

          Gladwell begins his support for this conclusion by pointing out a usually overlooked correlation.  That is, those who succeed in sports that are played during certain parts of the year – e.g., hockey or baseball – are apt to be born during certain stretches of dates.  In terms of hockey those are the months from January to April. 

Why?  Because, it seems, they are older than their cohorts as they grow up and learn to play the sport.  That gives them an advantage relative to the others; their mental and physical development is marginally better but in a competitive environment, that can mean a lot. 

They demonstrate, early on, higher skill levels; they are then on starting teams, get better coaching, and develop more productive emotional dispositions toward the sport, toward practice, toward the discipline greatness demands.  In other words, in this seemingly innocuous twist of fate, certain athletes have a consequential advantage and they had nothing to do with its occurrence.  Does it guarantee success?  Of course not.  Hard work is essential, but it is not all there is.

A person who has studied this phenomenon, Paula Barnsley, proposes that this type of skewed age advantage works if three conditions are also present:  early selection of the advantaged, separation of those deemed talented from the untalented, and the “talented” are afforded superior training or other experiences to enhance the talent.  If the three coincide with or are caused by the age advantage – people who are born just before the cutoff dates of the various sports – these lucky ones have meaningful advantages.

Now apply this advantage in sports to education; does it transfer to a scholastic endeavor?  Yes, it does.  And as with sports, the advantage is not just a matter of the first year or the first few years of schooling, but it extends for many years.  And education, as the gateway to many other opportunities, helps determine many of the successes one experiences through life.  This initial advantage shows itself in testing and advancements toward higher education accomplishments – from acceptance to higher education programs to further academic successes.

No, birthdates do not totally determine who succeeds.  Differences in correlation studies varies from ten to twenty percentage points.  But, one cannot deny an effect exists and, one should remember, is a totally random variable; no one schedules his/her birthdate.  In addition, this birthdate factor is only offered as an example of how a non-determined, accidental condition can affect how successful people are successful.  The famous sociologist, Robert Merton, gives this type of advantage a name, the “Matthew Effect.”  The Matthew refers to the Gospel of Matthew.

“For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance.  But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”  This excerpt from that gospel sounds un-Christian, but it does ring true given the finding Gladwell is reporting.  The point is: 

It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success.  It’s the rich who get the biggest tax breaks.  It’s the best students who get the best teaching and most attention.  And it’s the biggest nine- and ten-year-olds who get the most coaching and practice.  Success is the result of what sociologists like to call “accumulative advantage.”[3]

So, what does all this mean for educators, for civics teachers?

          The first step to address this obvious, anti-federated reality is for people to become aware of these unwarranted advantages that undermine fulfilling the federalist value, regulated equality.  How does these conditions relate to regulations?  Institutions – government, schools, youth organizations, and the like – can regulate differently how they treat age or other determining factors.  This needs definite and serious study.  This posting does not have the answers or is it proposing a set of regulations.  It just wants to add its voice to this topic.

          As for the relative, he has worked hard; he did not receive a good education; he immigrated to the US from a Central American country in his teens and was the product of a broken home.  He does deserve credit, along with his wife, for achieving a comfortable retirement, three successful children with their own families, and an extended number of years on this earth – he is in his eighties. 

But he did not do it alone.  For one thing, he was able to live his life in post-World War II America with all the advantages the sole industrial power during many of those years could provide.  The relative had nothing to do with that, but had the advantages flowing from an unparalleled economy.

This blog has previously pointed out this unequal distribution of advantages.  It has cited the work of the late John Rawls, the philosopher and social commentator.  In part, this is what this blog has reported:

[Rawls] two main relevant ideas regarding equality are (1) the notion that justice is the product of a people/group establishing the basic rules of their arrangement when no one knows beforehand what his/her status will be once the arrangement is formulated and (2) that once one analyzes the reasons for anyone’s success, one can only attribute limited attribution to a person’s effort for said success.  Both of these factors lead one to limit any compensation one [should] … receive relative to market determinations.  Last, Rawls argues for assistance for those not so privileged under the consideration that life can and does visit misfortune on potentially anyone – “there but for the grace of God go I.”[4]

Rawls’ ideas have influenced the development of the federalist moral code this blog has proposed.[5]

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[1] Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, (New York, NY:  Little, Brown and Company, 2008).

[2] Ibid., 19 (emphasis in the original).

[3] Ibid., 30.

[4] See Chandran Kukathas and Philip Pettit, Rawls:  A Theory of Justice and Its Critics, (Stanford, CA:  Stanford University Press, 1990).

[5] See posting, “Changing Times,” March 13, 2015.

JEFFERSON AND INNATE GOODNESS

This writer’s reading of Gary Wills’ history of Thomas Jefferson’s thinking in writing of the Declaration of Independence – at least as reflected in the books he read – ran across an insightful quote.  The quote comes from Jefferson’s pen.  It reads:

Man was destined for society.  His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object.  He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong, merely relative to this.  This sense is as much a part of his nature as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality, and not the to kalon,[1] truth, etc., as fanciful writers have imagined.  The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm.  It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree.  It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body.  This sense is submitted, indeed, in some degree, to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this; even a less one than what we call common sense.  State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor.  The former will decide it as well and often better than the latter because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.[2]

Is this true?

          The sentiment flies in the face of the tabula rasa view of the human mind.  To remind the reader – if needed – the term tabula rasa became prominent during Jefferson’s time.  That can be attributed to the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Francis Bacon, and John Locke.  It basically says, humans are born with no beliefs, inclinations, or biases other than their basic instincts.[3]

Of these three writers, Locke is most interesting when one is considering Jefferson’s thinking and writings.  Many seem to want to attribute this founding father’s inspiration coming from Locke and Locke’s supposed adherence to a natural rights view – as that construct is defined today. 

Wills claims that Jefferson did not even own a copy of Locke’s famous political/government classic, The Second Treatise of Civil Government.  But he did own Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, a more epistemological work.  And yet, the above quote seems to indicate Jefferson’s disagreement with Locke’s contention that humans are born with a clean slate.

This was an active point of debate during Jefferson’s time.  Such writers as Thomas Reid, Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, and Adam Smith actively contributed to this discussion – they did not all agree.  But some time has gone by – the discussion referred to here occurred during the late 1700s, coinciding with the writing of the Declaration and later on, the Constitution. 

In the years since, the study of psychology or related study, have in part been about answering the questions:  are humans naturally prone to be good; to do good works?  The answer:  maybe.  There is evidence indicating Jefferson was right, but the final verdict is still out.  But the research does suggest an answer.

One researcher, Michael Tomasello,[4] reports that one can observe young children have a bias toward good works – being helpful (at least attempting to be so).  And further, that this bias is not enhanced or furthered by rewards.  Therefore, training does not enhance or detract from this proclivity.  Plus, researchers observe this trend across cultures that vary in how and when social rules are taught.  And humans’ relatives – chimpanzees – show this bias toward helping under appropriate experimental setups.

In sum, Tomasello believes that, yes, humans have a natural inclination toward helping others from an early age and that what parents do or the culture encourages has little to do with this bias.  But that view is based on work with very young children.  This writer, a former secondary school teacher, can testify that teenagers, as a group, are not known for their altruism. 

He witnessed acts of charity by students he dealt with, but he also witnessed ample cases of cruelty or indifference when it came to the needs of others.  So, is there a transition as children grow up?  Tomasello reports further:  as very young children become older, say about age 3, they are more discriminating as to who will benefit from their good works.  It takes on a more transactional character; they will be more likely to be kind or apt to do a good turn to someone who has been good to him/her.

Also, at work is youngsters learning and accepting social norms.  These norms exist to facilitate societal existence – they are important.  There are too many needed behaviors from basic courtesies to how to behave in various social events or arrangements to count on more formal approaches, like enacting laws.  If nothing else, they make social living easier.  So, as children learn these norms, a natural tendency is to want to be part of it all and not be seen as weird.  Weirdness includes bucking social norms and among the young is fodder for ridicule.

Another researcher, Hillard S. Kaplan, agrees.  From an anthropological perspective, Kaplan is said to report “[m]odern humans have lived for most of their existence as hunter gatherers, so much of human nature has presumably been shaped for survival in such conditions … Kaplan has found evidence of cooperation woven into many levels of human activity.”[5] 

This includes division of labor between the sexes, among the ages of people, and among kin members and members of other families.  No choices here, cooperation was essential for survival.  And to be efficient, people being cooperative, need to be so willingly or voluntarily. 

The more people want to be in-sink with what is expected or needed, the more likely it will be done correctly, thoughtfully, and with less resources.  Feelings of altruism facilitate establishing such relationships.  Further, the more a society becomes specialized in its economic activity, the more these factors become important.

The cited New York Times’ account of this research goes on to report:

Indeed, it is in our biological nature, not our political institutions, that we should put our trust, in this view. Our empathy is innate and cannot be changed or long suppressed. “In fact,” Dr. [Frans] de Waal writes, “I’d argue that biology constitutes our greatest hope. One can only shudder at the thought that the humaneness of our societies would depend on the whims of politics, culture or religion.”

The basic sociability of human nature does not mean, of course, that people are nice to each other all the time. Social structure requires that things be done to maintain it, some of which involve negative attitudes toward others. The instinct for enforcing norms is powerful, as is the instinct for fairness. Experiments have shown that people will reject unfair distributions of money even it means they receive nothing.[6]

          Yes, research also indicates that humans can be selfish as well as charitable.  And, as this blog has argued, the educational institution in adopting, along with the whole polity, a natural rights perspective as the most influential view of governance and politics has led to an abandonment of being that institution dedicated to bolster the charitable side or a moral side.  It has led to a youth culture not noted for its altruism.

          Also, anti-social events – wars, criminality, snobbery, etc. – call for cooperation.  That is, to be successful, within an effected group, those who can exploit cooperative tendency for others in the group, will more likely achieve its goals.  “Lawrence H. Keeley, an anthropologist who has traced aggression among early peoples, writes in his book ‘War Before Civilization’ that, ‘Warfare is ultimately not a denial of the human capacity for cooperation, but merely the most destructive expression of it.’”[7]

          That then is what this question over cooperation, altruism, helpfulness, being moral, and the like tends to inspire in the current discussion.  Perhaps the late 1700s is not that long ago.  The balance between selfishness – natural enough – and charity has been part of the human condition from before civilization.  Civics education – one can argue – needs to address this ongoing battle.

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[1] Kalon refers to ideal physical or moral beauty as the term was used by ancient Greeks.

[2] Garry Wills, Inventing America:  Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (New York, NY:  Vintage Books, 1978/2018), 202-203.

[3] Without trying to be suggestive, the writer’s understanding is that sucking is about the only behavior instinct humans have.

[4] The information in this posting reporting on contemporary research on the psychology of altruism is taken from Nicholas Wade’s reporting.  See Nicholas Wade, “We May Be Born with an Urge to Help,” The New York Times, November 30, 2009, accessed October 25, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01human.html .

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., emphasis added to highlight the potentials of a viable civics-education program.

[7] Ibid.

TEACHING TORT LAW TO SECONDARY STUDENTS

[Note:  This posting is a continuation of a report on the development of a civics unit of study.  This unit is directing students to formulate informed positions on a governmental topic:  ground rules overseeing tort law.  It is being developed in real time.  Writer wants to identify his basic source of information, the Great Course’s course, Law School for Everyone.[1]]

Comparing the “short” history the last series of postings presented with that of foreign trade or the opioid crisis of earlier postings, this last history is not so short.  The length has to do with organizing that history around the three tensions highlighted – strict liability vs. negligence, misfeasance vs. nonfeasance, and factual causation vs. legal causation. 

But a teacher might feel that to assign students to read that history might be asking too much.  This developer agrees.  In these considerations, teachers should keep in mind the big picture: what do students need to know to be able to evaluate the nation’s handling of tort law – especially as it relates to federalist values?  And that portion of the history reviewing strict liability vs. negligence might be enough.

With that in mind, he offers some other options.  One concern is that some of this history might prove to be too abstract.  For example, describing intervening nuances in attributing negligence can be found too difficult for many students to appreciate or understand.  What might be considered is to either assigning those portions of the history to the more sophisticated students or omit it from the history altogether. 

          A second concern, the length itself, can be handled in various ways.  One way is:  the teacher can divide the class into three groups assigning each group one of the subsections that correspond to the three tensions.  This can be done several days before the beginning of the unit and, if assigned that way, the teacher can dedicate the first lesson (first class period) of the unit reviewing a list of organizing concepts along with conducting a discussion over the “no duty to a stranger” principle.[2]

          The discussion can last about fifteen minutes and then segue into a conceptualizing exercise that can grow out of the discussion.  So, as the discussion progresses, the teacher can present organizing concepts:  the American court system (its structural elements), its tensions (the three tensions highlighted in the history and of which each student has read about one of them), common law/case law, civil law, precedent, defendant and plaintiff (the adversaries), cause vs. fault, trial courts, appeal courts, reasonableness, and foreseeability. 

          During the last half of the lesson (about twenty-five minutes), these concepts can be reviewed.  By reviewing the concepts, the aim is not to impart sophisticated definitions or instilling a working capacity in their use.  Instead, the aim is to introduce the students to these ideas and have them begin using the ideas by reflecting on how they relate to one another.  One tool that teachers have used for this type of lesson is a concept wheel. 

A teacher offers the student a central concept – here, that would be tort law – and writes its symbolic representation – “tort law” – in the middle of a large circle.  The teacher suggests three or four main sub-ideas.  For example:  tensions, feasance, cause and fault, and liability standard can be used.  If this is a bit too abstract how about blame, money award, duty, and adversaries? 

Students, in their notes or on a handout (which can be already set up), as the discussion continues, are to fill in the circle with the reviewed concepts as they see them relate to one or more of the sub-ideas.[3]  As time allows, the student toward the end of exercise write out, to the best of their ability, a working definition for each concept and a brief paragraph on how one of the concepts relate to their portion of the history they were assigned to read.[4]

Lesson two can be dedicated to review, in broad terms, the nation’s court system.  This need not be overly detailed account of the structure.  A working knowledge of the following will do.  That is, knowing that there is a federal/national court system and state court systems; and within each level, there are trial courts, initial appeal courts, and a supreme court and that appeals follow that progression.  The teacher might augment this by explaining generally what an appeal is.

And, further, that the grounds for an appeal can be for various reasons; i.e., (1) a determination that the verdict is unreasonable or that during the trial the verdict was not supported by the evidence; (2) the judge made a mistake in applying the law (either statutory or constitutional law); and (3) an obvious miscarriage of justice is being perpetrated by the verdict or the trial’s process.  The textbook can be of assistance in this lesson.  Most civics textbooks review the structure of the court systems of the nation.

Lesson three could have students do an extended exercise – over two class periods – in which the students analyze their history reading to review the facts that are portrayed and prepare for an argument of how the history relates to federated values.  The teacher begins this by reviewing the federalist moral code – a code presented earlier in this blog.[5]  The lesson strives to have students prepare and engage in an argument over the federalist nature of tort law.

Another approach to this unit is for all students to read the whole history – over three assignment allotments – and then follow the above suggested activities around such a reading schedule.  Whether the reading is assigned to all students or is divided into thirds, the main effort is to, one, have students evaluate tort law in the US in accordance to federalist values and, two, use the opportunity to develop an argument over some aspect of tort law.

This latter aim can be accomplished if upon implementing the suggested approach for the two-class period lesson outlined above, the teacher directs students to pick one of the cases the Great Courses source identifies and is listed in an accompany online site.[6]  The site identifies a list of cases that have served up precedents regarding the various issues related to tort law in the US. 

By pairing students – two students pick the same case – they read the online material, consider the history of tort law, and apply the concepts reviewed in class to develop a pro-federalist argument (how the case advances a federalist value) and an anti-federalist/perhaps pro-natural rights argument (how the case challenges a federalist value and/or advances a natural rights argument).  Each student takes up one of these positions.

The arguments are written down in a logical format – perhaps utilizing Toulmin’s model reviewed and explained in the former posting, “Toulmin’s Elements of a Logical Argument (August 22, 2017).

The last lesson of this unit would be dedicated for the unit’s evaluation element.  Here the students can be tested to see their comprehension of tort law concepts, their appreciation of how tort law challenges federalist values, and perhaps their ability to evaluate – or short of that, synthesizing an existing critique (either in favor or in opposition) – to the tort system of this nation or to one of its elements.

With that evaluation lesson, the unit of study dedicated to the judiciary system comes to an end.  This unit represents how a suggested course of study in civics can treat a national element of the nation’s governmental/political arrangement.

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[1] Edward K. Cheng, “Torts,” Law School for Everyone – a transcript book (Chantilly, VA:  The Teaching Company/The Great Courses, 2017), 230-445.

[2] For readers who have not read this blog’s treatment of this principle, it refers to the fact that American common law does not place any burden or duty on a citizen to do something positive to assist another party.  The example given to illustrate this principle is:  one does not legally need to save a flailing baby in a puddle from drowning.

[3] One can readily see what a concept wheel looks like by using a search engine with that term, “concept wheel,” to find it.

[4] If the lesson takes too long, students can finish this assignment overnight and have it collected at the beginning of the next lesson – possibly for a quiz grade.

[5] See the posting, “A Federalist Moral View,” June 20, 2017.

[6] This site is not completed yet.  Over the next week or so, it will be.  Remember, this development is in real time!  The site has the following URL:  https://1drv.ms/w/s!AjzdhXNiY9HO3AFweEjyHhWDwY0G