As numerous scholars have noted, America is engaged in a “Cold Civil War.” Political differences revolve around adhering to the original Constitution or rejecting it for a living Constitution hollowed of any enduring meaning. In such a situation, the role of civic education could provide a soothing balm to America’s inflamed political passions.
A recent study by the RAND Corporation that surveyed the nation’s public-school teachers identifies the complicated state of American civic education, while perhaps also pointing the way to hope and renewal.
When asked what they consider to be the most important aims of civic education, 23 percent of teachers considered “promoting knowledge of social, political, and civic institutions” as most important. A majority, 68 percent, identified “promoting critical and independent thinking” as the primary goal. Notably, many teachers rejected more activist aims such as “promoting respect for and safeguard of the environment.”
Thus an incongruity exists in the data. Teachers seemingly reject an activist teaching agenda while also diminishing the teaching of social, political, and civic institutions. Yet if a majority prize critical and independent thinking, the question arises as to what students are to think critically and independently about? If the words of Abraham Lincoln still ring true today, that each generation should aim to “perpetuate” their political institutions, such a question is perpetually relevant.
Herein lies both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is to engage and inform America’s students about the principles and institutions of their country. The opportunity is to capitalize on a moment when teachers and students alike may be open to a non-activist agenda. In response to such a moment, one should eschew indoctrination and embrace the ideal of education itself – which in its original Latin means “to lead forth” – to inaugurate a new birth of freedom.
Writing on the same survey in Forbes, Frederick Hess notes that critical thinking presents a “vague, content-free placeholder” that does not evince that students be either informed about or engaged in pressing civic issues. Hess recommends an education “to teach students about the building blocks of civil society, promote the values that enable a diverse people to live peacefully and respectfully, and help students learn how to engage in constructive democratic debate.”
Hess’s recommendation, though sound, beckons for more – specifically a return to a civic education grounded in principles that are both enduring and universal.
Such a project features two important goals. First, dedicated teachers are needed who can bravely teach the principles and institutions of their country within a broader culture that increasingly rejects them. Such a goal is further compounded by recent studies conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center and Woodrow Wilson Foundation that found an alarming paucity of knowledge among Americans regarding their own history and political processes.
Teachers can take courage and guidance from the Constitution of Massachusetts of 1780, authored by John Adams and still in effect today. Its 18th article reads as follows:
A frequent recurrence to the fundamental principles of the constitution, and a constant adherence to those of piety, justice, moderation, temperance, industry, and frugality, are absolutely necessary to preserve the advantages of liberty, and to maintain a free government.
The principles of the Declaration of Independence – specifically nature, equality, and consent – and their corresponding relationship to the structure of the Constitution provide a strong grounding for such a recurrence. Such principles are, as Lincoln stated, “applicable to all men at all times,” serving as a source for unity and linking Americans one-to-another as fellow citizens.
The second goal is the need for academic statesmanship among America’s K-12 administrators. A statesman is one who leads by way of principles and exercises prudence in the implementation or defense of such principles.
Such statesmanship among administrators will not only require an artful navigation of the rules and regulations beset by the state upon our public schools. It will also require cultivating an environment in our schools in which students and teachers alike can recur to fundamental principles – teaching them, learning them, and hopefully living by them. In so doing, it may not only generate a head knowledge but also a heartfelt affection among students for their country.
In the hot Civil War of the 1860s, Lincoln stated how the war tested “whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure.” In our own time, a civic education anchored in the universal principles of the American Founding, taught and perpetuated by bold teachers and prudent administrators, may yet temper our “Cold Civil War” and ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
