Category Archives: audio and video

two discussions of civics during the 2024 campaign

For the Yale Alumni Educators group, Mike Fishback moderated a recent conversation about navigating the 2024 election in schools. The guests were my friends Louise Dube, the Executive Director of iCivics, Jane Kamensky, the President of Monticello, and me. The video is below, and there’s also an audio-only file for people who might prefer that format.

Meanwhile, educators Michael Ralph and Laurence Woodruff regularly discuss research and drink carefully selected beer on their podcast, Two Pint PLC (PLC = professional learning community). Chris Carter joined them recently for a chat about my article entitled “Politics by other means: Civic education in a time of controversy,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 705(1), 24-38. The audio is here. I would have enjoyed tasting Nordic Jam lager from Two Pitchers Brewery and talking with these great teachers about the challenges of discussing controversial issues in a classroom during an election year.

Civic Studies as a response to crises in American higher education

This is a panel at the American Enterprise Institute yesterday, part of a daylong conference on “The Future of the American University: Civic Education, Past and Present.” I am on the panel with Justin Dyer, the dean of the new School of Civic Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin, and our moderator, AEI’s Yuval Levin. I made a case for Civic Studies as a new field and then enjoyed the discussion with my two colleagues and the interesting questions from the audience.

The rest of the day was interesting and valuable and can be explored here.

Civic Education in a Time of Democratic Crisis

I enjoyed an online conversation yesterday with David Campbell from Notre Dame, Paul Carrese from Arizona State University, Linda Darling-Hammond from the Learning Policy Institute, Kent McGuire of the Hewlett Foundation, and Na’ilah Suad Nasir from the Spencer Foundation. We discussed research collected in the current volume of The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, on the topic of “Civic Education in a Time of Democratic Crisis.” Several articles in that volume feature recent insights from the National Academy of Education’s Educating for Civic Reasoning and Discourse report and the Educating for American Democracy Roadmap.

The conversation addressed such questions as these: What new understanding of civic education is presented in the ANNALS volume, and how is this vision relevant to our current political environment? What are some recent shifts in civics standards and requirements? What can we learn from the learning sciences about pedagogies for civics? What does all this mean for teacher education?

I also thought that members of the audience pushed us to consider some valuable questions, such as whether it’s right to use “crisis” language to describe democracy or civic education in our schools (or both).

people are not points in space

This is the video of a lecture that I gave at the Institute H21 symposium in Prague last September. The symposium was entitled Democracy in the 21st Century: Challenges for an Open Society, and my talk was: “People Are Not Points in Space: Opinions and Discussions as Networks of Ideas.” I’m grateful for the opportunity to present and for the ideas of other participants and organizers.

My main point was that academic research currently disparages the reasoning potential of ordinary people, and this skepticism discourages efforts to protect and enhance democratic institutions. I think the low estimate of people’s capacity is a bias that is reinforced by prevalent statistical methods, and I endorse an alternative methodology.

See also:  individuals in cultures: the concept of an idiodictuon; Analyzing Political Opinions and Discussions as Networks of Ideas; a method for analyzing organizations

introduction to Gandhi

This is a lecture that I pre-recorded for Introduction to Civic Studies this semester. It provides some background about the life and fundamental ideas of Mohandas K. Gandhi.

Students will also read these texts:

  • Ramachandra Guha, Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World (2018), chapter 16 (on the Great Salt March)
  • Gandhi, Satyagraha (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing Co., 1951): excerpts
  • Gandhi, Notes, May 22, 1924 – August 15, 1924, in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, New Delhi, Publications Division Government of India, 1999, 98 volumes,  28, pp. 307-310

In class we will will discuss such questions as these: How (if at all) can one organize voluntary collective action at a sufficient scale to bring about change in Gandhi’s preferred ways? Is Gandhi right to demand sacrifice and to see sacrifice as intrinsically meritorious? How can Gandhi know whether his stance is correct when he finds himself in conflict with other idealists, such as B.R. Ambedkar? And is it fair for Gandhi to claim that he only knows the means, not the result, of the struggle, if the end is actually predicable?

See also: Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948 by Ramachandra Guha; Gandhi versus Jinnah on means and ends; Gandhi on the primacy of means over ends; notes on the metaphysics of Gandhi and King; Rev. James Lawson, Jr on Revolutionary Nonviolence; etc.