When these students would come to my honors class as juniors and seniors, their lack of interest in both American History and American Government was appalling, and I mean appalling. The quality of Texas' education system is already seriously lacking. It took a lot of energy to come up with ways to get the students interested and engaged. I was big on group research and presentation, and it helps when they are finding the information and they have to make it relevant.
But, I also shared a practical anecdote.
I told them that I was a member of the baby boom generation, born literally right in the middle of this largest of generations at the time. I said that their lack of interest in their government, economy and history didn't bother me. My generation understood the importance of being informed voters and doing their civic duty. There were more of us than there were of the generation of the students seated in my classroom.
"Don't get too interested," I said. "My generation is informed and votes at high percentages, and when we get old and are facing retirement, we will just elect politicians who will steal you blind, and put it in our Social Security and Medicare. So don't vote, OK?"
I don't know how well that reverse psychology worked, but two of my former students are now county district attorneys, one is a county sheriff, and one works as a Congressional intern. So maybe they got the message. But there's a lot of truth in that tongue-in-cheek statement. In a constitutional democracy, the power is in the ballot box. And if those who have the responsibility for it are uniformed, or not interested, it can become dangerous to the preservation of the democracy.
More Required Social Studies Education
I'm going to get on my soap box here, and rant for a couple of paragraphs. The emphasis on school improvement in this country falls to math and science, because American students don't score as well on international assessments in these subjects. But as we look at the dynamics of this election, it's pretty obvious we need to improve what students need to know about civics and American history in order to preserve our democracy. How else is it possible for a convicted felon and rapist who himself organized a failed, but deadly attempt to attack Congress in the middle of counting electoral votes, to even be re-nominated by a major political party? The rest of the world is asking that question. Why can't we explain it?
Several years ago, my wife and I hosted a foreign exchange student from Switzerland. He was 16 years old, in his third year of what would be the equivalent of an American high school, spoke three languages, including his native Swiss-German, English and French, and was taking Russian in school, was placed in a Calculus AB class, in which he earned A's, and had enough of a working knowledge of American History to get A's in the class and help other students understand the objectives. He was able to identify and explain political ideology in terms of both philosophy and government policy and understood differences between Democrats and Republicans more than almost all of his classmates. And in Switzerland, he wasn't considered an honor student, though his grades were good enough to get into the University of Bern, where he earned a law degree.
And for Swiss students of his age, that's typical. The Swiss managed to remain neutral in the center of the hostile political environment of Europe, through two world wars that raged right up to their borders and to the edge of their airspace, and preserved their nation. They value both their neutrality and their independence and they understand that an educated and informed electorate is the key to preserving both of those things. It's a requirement for students in their educational system, and failure isn't an option, they must pass before leaving school.
Their education system may also be one of the reasons why they have one of the highest percentages of personal gun ownership in the world, and no mass shootings. John Dewey, considered the modern father of American public education, believed that education was the key to social reform for the benefit of a free society, and he was absolutely correct.
An educated and committed electorate, made up of true patriots, would never tolerate such an insurrection, would have prosecuted the instigator along with the participants, and would never have been in the situation of having him become the nominee of one of the two major parties. That must be fixed as soon as possible.
Breaking Up the Commercialization of the Free Press
There is a free press in the United States, genuinely free, unencumbered by obligations that prevent it from telling the truth. The problem is that because it has freed itself from corporate interests and ownership, it has a very small audience. It tells the truth, can be trusted, holds politicians accountable and is actually fair and balanced.
The Pacifica Radio Network is a good example. It is a non-commercial, not for profit entity that owns five radio stations outright, in Houston, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Washington, DC and New York and has a larger network of affiliates. Another of my favorites is The Texas Observer. It may be considered a liberal leaning publication but it most definitely fits the definition of a free press. And another favorite, Baptist News Global, has a religious context, but is Baptist in the historic, cultural context of what that means, not in the Evangelical context.
I've been particularly frustrated at the fact that our corporately owned media is turning out to be more of a propaganda outlet than a free press. It's become an apologetic mouthpiece for Republicans and for Trump, who has been the main subject of most of its reporting for over nine years now. I can't remember a single day since the man first started running for President that the media, fascinated by his corruption and his ability to get away with just about anything, hasn't reported some news item that mentions his name or something he's done. And if that's not a personal propaganda outlet, then I don't know what is.
And let's be honest. If reporting had been fair, balanced, and followed any rules of journalism, he would not have been elected the first time.
Fighting to Keep Democracy Alive is Hard Work
Our own prosperity may be collapsing in on top of us. Something once considered the most enlightened idea of the enlightenment, the American Republic, is dying. It's dying because intolerance which I believe is the product of prosperity, has created such a rift along racial, ethnic, economic, social and religious lines that some Americans cannot stand to be around other Americans and cannot tolerate things protected by freedom of conscience.
The projection from the far right is fascinating. They accuse us of planning to do everything they are planning to do if they win. Many of them seem to think that people who don't get in line with the conservative, religious right's way, the world will be destroyed. They believe, wrongly, that God's judgment is just waiting to put the hammer down because of America's corporate "sins" in spite of the fact that there is no such thing.
I do find it funny, and horrifically inconsistent, that those who believe that God is going to judge the United States for its sin, specifically for allowing abortion to occur within its boundaries, have chosen a worldly, corrupt, rapist, convicted felon and pathological liar as a presidential candidate. Somehow he will be the one to save the country. Not the prosecutor who has spent her entire life fighting crime.
We are the ones to whom the task of saving America's constitutional democracy has been left. We will have to do it at the ballot box. Once we're able to make that happen, we need to seriously think about doing some of what I've suggested to keep this from ever happening again. It's going to take a long time to get Trumpism out of American political life and culture, if we can ever even do so. It will have to be something that happens among the younger generations, and involves our education system.
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