If the FCAT remains a fact of Florida life, here’s hoping that we at least add civics to it. And to the federal No Child Left Behind evaluation while we’re at it. Apparently, that’s the only way to guarantee that a subject gets taught.
And in the case of civics – which lacks the cachet and commercial relevance of subjects that directly correlate to success in the global marketplace – it needs teaching. And it’s just not a matter of embarrassing results from that recent report from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. The ISI found (from a randomly-selected sampling of 2,500 citizens) that one in five elected officials thought the Electoral College “was established to supervise the first presidential debate” and one in three elected officials didn’t know that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are the inalienable rights so often referred to in the, whatcha-macallit, Declaration of Independence.
It’s hardly a novel concept that the vitality – and, ultimately, longevity – of a democracy depends on an informed electorate. And that, candidly, gets scarier by the year. How do you hold your elected representatives accountable if you don’t do your due diligence? How do you best contribute to a free-market economy if your economic lodestars are limited to “greed is good” or “the state will provide”? How do you support the principles of “democracy” – especially as an extension of American foreign policy – if you’re ignorant of the basics? How is that not an exercise in hypocrisy?
And civics, lest we forget, is not just a bunch of rote-remembered bullet points – and shouldn’t be taught that way. Sure, it’s about the branches of government, the separation of powers and the lessons of the Cold War. But it’s about more than that. It’s about quotidian rights and responsibilities. Thomas Jefferson’s take on the value of public education still resonates today:
“The objects of primary education…are to instruct the mass of citizens in
these: their rights, interests, and duties as men and citizens…to understand his
duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the
functions confided to him by either.”
“We the people” rings hollow if it’s euphemistic short hand for “We the uninformed people expecting the good life, sacrificing nothing and hoping for the best…” Teaching more civics is no panacea for a lazy democracy, but it holds out the hope that the more each new generation knows about how all this happened – and what’s precious about it – the better our future prospects. They’ve never been in greater peril.