The results of the 2024 election are just one more in a long string of examples giving us reason to reconsider the place civics education has in the mandated elementary and high school curriculum in this country. An educated electorate is one of the major keys to preserving the values of democracy and of the American Republic. The deterioration of education has become obvious in the results of multiple elections and in the divisiveness and the agenda-driven politics that have delivered gridlock and partisan loyalty over patriotism.
When I was in graduate school, one of the part-time jobs I held was as a placement director and student supervisor for an organization which brought foreign exchange students to the United States. My job was to find families willing to host students for a school year, and then, to provide support for the students while they were attending school. Even after finishing school and while working full time, I continued to work with the exchange students because of the insights it provided for my own work as an educator.
Over more than a decade, I had the privilege of working with students from a variety of countries, primarily Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway and Australia. Their primary motivation for joining the program was to improve and solidify their ability to speak English, to take driver's education, which was much more expensive in their home countries, and to see parts of the United States away from the tourist areas.
Political Awareness and Understanding of World Politics Went Way Beyond What America Students Knew or Understood
What these students knew about American civics and government was way above the level of Americans at the same grade level. As a history and government teacher myself, I was fascinated by how much these students, who ranged in age from 16 to 18 and who were in their third, fourth or fifth year of secondary school in their home country, knew about American History and government. The first year I did this, I had two students from Switzerland and one from Spain. All three reported that during the first few weeks of school, they'd had to pull back when it came to answering questions and participating in the discussions because most of their classmates didn't have the scope of knowledge of the objectives that they did.
These students, in studying history at multiple levels, had done far more outside reading and research than their American classmates were required to do, they'd had to use their critical thinking skills to analyze historical events and political movements, and then explain why they held their particular opinion or perspective, something American students aren't required to do until they get to college. And on top of it all, they had to know specific events, personalities, and dates, and they had to demonstrate an understanding of how all of that fit together to bring the culture, their country, and the world, to the place where it was at the moment.
There's no reason why American students can't be taught how to develop those kinds of skills, and how to use them to formulate an opinion or position. And the best teachers we have still do. But that's far from the collective results we get from students in social studies classes in our educational system. Maybe that's what we see at higher performing schools, or in academic oriented private or charter schools, but it's not typical. These European students have a civics course and a history course every year they are in school, right up to the 13th and 14th levels some European schools require before students can go to college.
Most American students have to pass a U.S. Constitution test in eighth grade, a state constitution test at the same time, and get a semester of American History in eighth grade and then the other half in eleventh grade, They get a geography course in ninth grade, a world civilization class in 10th, the second half of American history in 11th, and a semester each of government and economics in 12th. Most of the European students that I worked with had political science courses, classes covering various economic systems such as socialism, communism, capitalism, and analysis of the economics of their own country, and they had the classes in underlying philosophies of both government and economic systems. They had studied the impact of religion on their own culture, including the impact of Catholicism, the Protestant Reformation and how that affected the development of their social, economic and political culture. They could identify threats to peace and security for their own nation and what they saw as the same thing for the rest of the world.
It would be a rare occurrence to have those kinds of conversations in American high schools, and in some cases, not even in a college unless it was a room full of poly sci or history majors. And that lack of knowledge and critical thinking skills is increasingly showing up in elections. And, in the huge number of Americans who are eligible to vote, but haven't bothered to register. It may be too late for this to help, down the road, the crash that education should be preventing may have already occurred.
Election Results Should Point Us Back to Increasing the Required Objectives for Social Studies Courses in American Schools
Across the full span of my career in education, I've seen the length of the school day shortened, class schedules made in favor of mathematics, science and technology courses with social studies and language arts classes shoved into the shorter periods and given less time during the course of a week. The number, and type of social studies courses required has been reduced, most states give their federal and state constitution exams to eighth graders, along with half of the required objectives in American History, and they split the American Government objectives with Economics, each only required for one semester. And our standard school day is less than 6 hours, with lunch included, when students are in school from 8:30 to 2:45.
And in many schools, the schedule allocates longer class periods on alternate days to the math, science and technology classes, and puts the social studies and English classes in the shorter time slots.
Contrast that with the schedule and course requirements in history, government, economics and political science, with European schools, who don't just lay out lists of dates and facts, but include objectives requiring students to form, and express, an opinion, based on the facts they learn.
In most states now, students reach the peak of their social studies education in eighth grade, where they are required to pass a federal and state constitution test. What I would propose is that they take a comprehensive federal and state constitution exam along with the achievement or objective tests they take in order to graduate from high school, in addition to the eighth grade test. From sixth through twelfth grade, a full year of geography, history or civics should be a requirement, and when they get to high school, the written communication objectives for English courses should be paired with social studies courses so that written assignments involve learning how to read texts, filter information and draw conclusions.
Modern world history should be a ninth grade requirement, economics for tenth grade, the full spectrum of America History taught in eleventh grade and American Civics/Government in twelfth. Politics and political discussions should be held at every level when appropriate. Even when I had students in a geography class, we always had a day, at least once a month, when students were required to find articles in the media about a specific election or political issue, at every level of government, and describe it and form an opinion about it. Teachers are professionals, and should be able to conduct a reasonably fair discussion, but they should also be protected by law from consequences related to parent complaints or for voicing their own opinion.
It May Be Too Late, But Saving Social Studies May Also Save American Education
For being as prosperous and influential in the world that we are, our education system doesn't match the responsibility that we have in the world. Our education system isn't world class. There are few places where students in this country have an opportunity, through the publicly funded education system, to get what their European counterparts get. For the most part, that kind of academic rigor is available mostly in private schools, though they are also not prepared or capable of teaching social studies at a high level.
And while there are social issues and community issues that are obstacles to education in many parts of the country, the biggest problem is that improving and funding education at a high level has become a progressive, left wing, Democratic party owned political issue. Republicans don't care. And when they're in charge of education, mainly at the state level, they generally underfund the whole system, and there's little in the way of any kind of educational initiatives included in the budget. Their solution to solving the difficulties and problems of American education is to teach the Bible in public schools, and cut the budget to eliminate anything innovative or that works.
The biggest hint we've been given, indicating where the GOP is headed as far as improving American education is concerned is that they're not going to improve it. Trump wants to disband the Department of Education, which will move public schools in exactly the opposite direction from which they need to go. Most Republicans see the public schools as the agent of progressive liberalism in society and their control of it involves doing anything to avoid that happening, including undermining the curriculum.
Elections do indeed have consequences. It's no accident that the states which have the highest achieving public schools are the ones who put the most money into them, and who are blessed with the best teachers. They pay well. They provide reasonable benefits. They require a high level of continuing education, which they help pay for. And they get good results, which set the example for those states who are struggling to provide quality education.
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