Maybe. I never forgot a for-tv movie called The Wave that we watched in civics class. It was about a teacher who was asked in class how regular people could ever become Nazis. So he decided to start an extracurricular club and make it super exclusive to see how far students would go to be included…
The loss of public education as a positive good, including its civics curriculum, changes every child's notion of what school is or might be because the loss has changed adult perceptions.
2) separating local citizens into whose children are still attending and whose aren't. It means it's become harder and harder to envision a positive outcome to school attendance, and then layer school shooting on top of that.
Civics is critically important, but it needs supporting limbs.
Not a useless thought! But at least as it’s currently deployed, I think civics education is part of the problem. Hides the stakes, obscures the institutions and people in coalition, the ways through which they exert pressure and force, makes process seem inevitable, rather than actively reproduced.
In retrospect I not sure I (or my kids) had much civics education, even of the rote kind? But it feels like it would be nice if people were more attached to the idea that it's not okay for unelected randos to run around DC and steal and break shit
I agree with you both. It’s remarkable (derogatory) how little we learn as a matter of course about our own political agency, let alone about the power struggles that produced the systems we live within now. A deep cultural shortcoming, one needing deep and also immediate remedies.
I'd like to know more about how "civics" is taught K-12 currently; I get the impression that there is little margin for it in most places.
At the uni level, "civics" is often a label that justifies harmful, "apolitical" mediocrities like "leadership academies" or centers for "civil dialogue."
(I have often had cause, lately, to be grateful that my folks were the kind of people who organized w/ their neighbors, demanded to speak w/ local electeds, and ran for minor local office, just as a matter of course. Not part of a movement, but always ready to move toward getting involved).
I’ve been out of academia for well over a decade now, but honestly it was a joy to work with undergrads to examine all the (often unwarranted) assumptions we are all force-fed about US history & culture. It’s *hard* for some (✋) to let go of those illusions. But once aware, it’s harder to deny.
Having the same I wonders. Also wondering this: Saying the pledge of allegiance every day at school my whole childhood sunk in. It made me feel like I had an American identity committed to that whole liberty and justice for all thing. Why didn’t that sink in for everyone else who grew up saying it?
Even though at the time it felt like just saying words I think that daily affirmation of “standing for the republic” helped form my identity as American. It’s unreal how so many people have turned in their American cards and no longer stand for the republic and what it means to be an American
Most of the people I know who are well-educated in civics have religious right wing family backgrounds, so...maybe?
@sarahquinn.bsky.social told me about Stephanie Mudge's work, so I've been blaming left adoption of neoliberalism (the book has not come in on ILL yet; I may give up and buy it)
Remember all the PSAs that used to run in the 70s & 80s to educate us? I can still repeat most of them to you word-for-word. We don't have that anymore. But HAI is on a mission to change that. Please join us. It only takes minutes a day. It's copy & paste and anyone can do it.
American schools are meant to teach compliance & conformity, at least as much as they're meant to educate, & were never meant to teach what might have mattered now - that democracy requires constant work to maintain it & that every oppressed group has had to fight for every scrap of dignity it has
I know. It... I think there were so many places we went off the rails, honestly. And probably we should have done better starting like at the end of WWII. But...
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The loss of public education as a positive good, including its civics curriculum, changes every child's notion of what school is or might be because the loss has changed adult perceptions.
That means bad budget decisions locally. It means
Civics is critically important, but it needs supporting limbs.
At the uni level, "civics" is often a label that justifies harmful, "apolitical" mediocrities like "leadership academies" or centers for "civil dialogue."
@sarahquinn.bsky.social told me about Stephanie Mudge's work, so I've been blaming left adoption of neoliberalism (the book has not come in on ILL yet; I may give up and buy it)
My K-12 civics education was more than adequate, and I've been acutely aware of our Constitutional boundaries getting tested for decades.
I chose further study in college, but that was just a deeper dive into topics I'd already been introduced to as a kid.