One of the things I got tired of very quickly during my 36 years as a teacher was kids telling me they “had a right” to do something. As an American History and AP Government teacher I would respond, “Oh? And where in the Constitution does it say that?” The student would look at me blankly and I would tell them to be quiet and that if they listened and paid attention they would find out just what rights they had as students (much fewer than adults, especially in school, as it turns out) and just where those rights came from.
Another thing I found tiresome were queries from students, “Why do we have to know this stuff!?!” Sometimes it was a lament specific to my class; sometimes it was about other subjects entirely. My general answer was, “This is a high school. We can’t know where you’ll end up in the future or how many different jobs you may have throughout your life, so we have to try and prepare you to be flexible enough so you’re ready for anything.” Thomas Jefferson said, “It is highly interesting to our country, and it is the duty of its functionaries, that every citizen in it should receive an education proportioned to the condition and pursuit of his life.”
The specific answer for my class was, “The very life and future of our country depends on you learning this subject matter I’m trying to teach you.” Again Jefferson was wise on the issue – he said, “Whenever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government.”
It seems like many Americans have forgotten their basic Civics’ lessons from their school days or perhaps they never learned those lessons at all. Democracy means that every citizen has rights to free expression and to participate in the electoral process within the confines of the law and certain regulatory requirements. Democracy means free and fair elections determine who holds public office and makes the law; that doesn’t translate into your side has to win all of the time because if they don’t somehow things were unfair or rigged, that’s poppycock. Democracy means that other people get to have their opinion and their say without fear of being shouted down or subjected to violence. We seem to have forgotten there are two sides to a coin, multiple points of view and more than one way to skin a cat. For that I blame President George W. Bush and Senator Edward Kennedy specifically and school districts, administrators and teachers all across the country generally.
The culprit? The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, brainchild of President George W. Bush and spearheaded through the Congress by Senator Kennedy. This was one of those legislatively good ideas on paper but a bad practical reality filled with unintended legislative consequences. First of all, it proclaimed the Lake Woebegone mantra of “all children are above average”, something that is patently untrue. It declared in law that every child was capable of meeting certain standards and performance levels at specific ages regardless of circumstances; regardless of maturity level or cognitive or motor skills (especially important and variable in very young children), regardless of mental capability – those in special education were to achieve at the same level as everyone else in the initial formation of the practical application of the law, regardless of the financial capability of the district to meet the needs of the kids – in terms of materials, classroom size, availability of qualified instructors, regardless of student attendance, effort and parental involvement etc. When I was a member of the South Dakota Legislature we had a saying, “Nothing is impossible if someone else has to do it.” That’s the No Child Left Behind Act in spades.
In athletics we recognize people have different innate ability levels. We’d never dump a kid out of a wheelchair onto the track and tell them to run the 40-yard dash in under twenty seconds. If the handicapped child attempted to complete the 40-yard dash in twenty seconds and couldn’t; we wouldn’t dream of blaming the coach or the youngster for the failure instead we’d all realize why success under these circumstances was impossible and accept the reality of the situation. We’d recognize that the fat kid and the short kid are at a disadvantage in running a race compared to the tall, athletic, long legged kid etc. It’s plain to see why, obvious and goes without saying. Academically it is much the same although somehow, in some way all kids are to achieve at the same high level academically at the same time in the school year simply because the law declares that they will. I’ve never understood why policy makers could see it wasn’t logical to expect every child to be a stud athletically but by some miracle they could automatically all be high achievers academically.
Since No Child Left Behind tested kids, and since those scores were published and compared within and among States, only those tested subjects were important to schools across America. That meant Reading, English and Math were emphasized while Civics and all other subjects, especially the arts, went by the board. Of late, Science has been added to the tested subjects so now, all of a sudden, science is important too.
The United States Chamber of Commerce conducted a study and found that only one in three adult Americans could name all three branches of government. Two in three Americans would fail the citizenship test given to immigrants seeking to become American citizens. In other words, if these two-thirds of Americans weren’t already born here they wouldn’t qualify to be citizens at all. Only one in three millennials surveyed think it’s important that we live in a democracy.
American society is reaping two decades of neglect of basic citizenship education. Thomas Jefferson said, “A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.” We now have citizens actively campaigning in favor of dictatorship, engaging in acts of treasonous insurrection, calling into question perfectly legitimate elections and vehemently advocating the violent overthrow of the government.
Democracy is a fragile thing; it is neither guaranteed nor automatic. We need Civics education now more than ever for our kids and many adults could use a refresher course as well. The fate of our Republic rests on us and upon the immediate remedial actions we under take to rectify our drift towards despotism. We must repair the neglect of basic citizenship education, correct the rampant disinformation that percolates on social media and elsewhere as well as redirect the misguided enthusiasm of some for totalitarianism.
Jefferson and our other Founders based this country on democratic principles, principles that all of us once held sacred and dear. Will we continue to do so in the future especially if our civics education about government comes from social media, biased sources, foreign governments trying to influence our thought and those who believe democracy is a hackneyed way to govern and find authoritarianism attractive? I hope we can agree, even if we agree on nothing else, that despotism is bad and democracy is good.