Category Archives: advocating civic education

civic education in Russia

The Russian Education Ministry recently unveiled new curricular units for grades 1-11 under the label of “Talking About What is Important: Our Country is Russia.” I learned about the curriculum from this article in Meduza, but the magic of Google Translate allowed me to read the whole thing in English. It’s fascinating as a window into Russian pedagogy and state values, as well as a dim reflection of practices that some Americans would advocate–or even use already–for our children.

Perhaps the creepiest part comes in the Materials for Grades 5-7. Students compete in teams to answer quiz questions, such as “What is the tallest building in Europe?” (answer: Lakhta Center, St. Petersburg) and “What order do the colors appear in the Russian flag?”

At this point, the lesson plan says:

Teacher: While the results of the game are being summed up, I want to note that regardless of points scored, you are all great, because you know a lot about geography, history and culture of our country. …
We see manifestations of genuine patriotism even today, above all during the special military operation. Its launch on February 24 of this year was announced by the President of Russia V.V. Putin. In his speech, the President noted: “Circumstances require us to take decisive and immediate actions. The People’s Republic of Donbas turned to Russia with a request for help.” Among the goals of a special military operation are to protect the population of Donbas, subjected to bullying and harassment by the Kyiv regime, to disarm Ukraine, and to prevent the deployment of NATO military bases. The Russian armed forces, together with the forces of the DPR and LPR, are actively working to achieve these goals. Huge military and other assistance of the collective West to the Ukrainian authorities is prolonging the fighting and increases the number of victims of the operation.
Over the past months, we have learned the names of our heroes, Russian patriots. Here are some more facts. Captain Alexander Romanov during the battle discovered a group of Ukrainian nationalists and decided to push them into the minefield. As a result of the operation, the nationalists surrendered, Captain Romanov personally neutralized 26 men. Thanks to the successful operation, Russian troops occupied the salient without losses.

(The list of heroic feats continues.)

Another snippet, this one from grades 3-5, provides a portrait of a Russian classroom as the Ministry imagines it:

Teacher: Today let’s think together again about what it means to love your Motherland, and how to learn it. For this it is important to answer the question “What do we call the Motherland?”. It is both simple and very complex issue. Of course, the Motherland for us is our country Russia. And what else? I would like to hear your answers.
Sample answers of children: “The motherland is also the people who live in our country, and our family, and the place where we were born, and the culture”.
Teacher: Let’s listen to the lyrics of the song “Where the Motherland Begins” by Veniamin Basner to the words of Mikhail Matusovsky. …

I had the opportunity to work with Ukrainian teachers in Kyiv in 2017, so I knew their national curriculum at the time. It had patriotic elements, but also democratic, classically liberal, and cosmopolitan aspects, and it seemed to align with guidance from the Council of Europe. I did not see anything about democracy or individual rights in the new Russian materials, even as lip-service.

We must teach students about politics, government, history, and social issues–to equip them to participate on an equal footing. However, civic education is always dangerous, because the government is able to compel children to learn about itself. I realize that conservative critics believe that American public schools teach youth to support expansive state policies and bureaucracies that they oppose. For me, a greater risk is a curriculum that idolizes the nation and its existing system and policies–much like the Kremlin’s. These disagreements are inevitable and even healthy. The best we can do is to have an ongoing, critical, diverse, deliberative, and influential public debate about what students should learn, so that this crucial question is not settled by politicians alone.

reflections on German/US learning exchanges

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Tisch College has been proud to collaborate with the Arbeitskreis deutscher Bildungsstätten e.V. (“network of German educational institutions” or AdB) on a Transatlantic Exchange of Civic Educators (TECE). This project has allowed 24 people who educate for democracy and civic life in Germany or the USA to interact intensively online and to visit the two countries together. I personally learned a great deal about contrasting policies and institutional cultures and common challenges, especially the teaching of “hard histories.”

Americans have a lot to learn from Germany’s extensive system for adult education, which involves governmentally funded but substantially independent centers and institutes all across the country, staffed by professionals who have studied adult education. These institutions explicitly promote democracy. On the other hand, the US expects our colleges and universities to provide more public outreach and education, and we have strong social movements that offer a lot of learning opportunities–albeit generally without any state funds.

AdB has now published a detailed and valuable report from the project that is available online, in English. Among other components, it includes an essay by TECE fellows Navina Engelage, April Grayson, Gabrielle Lamplugh, Elena Neu, Teresa Pfaffinger and Sarah M. Surak on history “as an entry point to dialogue and civic education,” and an essay by fellows Laura Tavares, Christina Wiley, Emma Humphries, Sarah Wagner and Christian Johann on the context of political polarization in both countries.

college students’ civic knowledge “appalling” … in 1943

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Thanks to a Twitter thread by historian Meredith Henne Baker, I read an article from The New York Times entitled “Ignorance of U.S. History Shown by College Freshmen.” In that piece, Benjamin Fine reported the results of 7,000 surveys completed at a substantial set of participating institutions, from Boston University to Yeshiva College.

The results look pretty awful. “A large majority” could not answer questions about Lincoln, Jefferson, Jackson, or Lincoln. Twenty-five percent did not know that Lincoln was president during the Civil War. Students’ geographical knowledge was also deemed poor: “Most of our students do not have the faintest notion of what this country looks like.” Asked about the Bill of Rights, many respondents named rights that are not in that document, including FDR’s four freedoms and women’s suffrage.

None of this sounds like news. We have surely heard it all before. See, for example, “Failing Grades on Civics Exam Called a ‘Crisis’” (New York Times, May 4, 2014).

The interesting point about Fine’s article is its date: April 4, 1943. He uses a lot more words than his 2014 successor, and he combines commentary with reporting in a looser or breezier style. Otherwise, these articles almost rhyme.

I might have expected the results to look better in 1943. College freshmen were a more elite subgroup of the young-adult population then, the curriculum was narrower (giving American history potentially a larger share), and the US was fighting a highly patriotic all-out war. But overall, the statistics looked no better in those days, and maybe worse than today.

When arguing for better civics and historical education, we should avoid the language of decline or current crisis. In reality, levels of civic and historical knowledge–as measured by such instruments–appear remarkably flat despite dramatic changes in education and society. These surveys and their specific questions are subject to debate; people know important things not reported in these articles. Still, it is worth seriously investigating why basic political and historical knowledge seem so persistently poor.

One implication is that quick and easy solutions are unlikely to work. Requirements for courses and tests have come and gone over the past 80 years, with sometimes statistically significant results but no fundamental change.

Another implication is that political reforms must accompany changes in education. Just to name one example, Gimpel, Lay & Schuknecht (2003) found that young people learned and knew more about politics if they grew up in competitive electoral districts rather than “safe” seats. Thus gerrymandering reform would help civic education. That is just an example of how civic knowledge has a demand side as well as a supply side. The more adults are invited to play consequential political roles, the more youth will seek and receive civic education. However, to empower citizens is usually a struggle, because it usually comes at the expense of current power-holders.

A third implication is that we would need bolder policy reforms to improve civic education substantially. Adding or removing a test may matter, but it is a pretty modest intervention. If knowledge of the political system and its history are truly important, we will need more than a course or test.

We have never really tried a sustained and coherent effort to set targets, enact requirements, educate educators, produce materials, assess students, evaluate programs, and improve all the inputs. Educating for American Democracy offers a roadmap for such an effort, and it would be unprecedented.

putting the constitution in its place

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Newly in print: Peter Levine, “Putting the US Constitution in Its Place,” in Citizenship and Civic Leadership in America, edited by Carol McNamara and Trevor Shelly (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022), pp. 281-292.

Abstract:

Almost all American students are required to study the formal structure of the US government, and most perform fairly well on concrete, factual questions about the Constitution. But there is much more for competent citizens to learn. After I explore some valid reasons to include the Constitution in required curricula, I argue that the document provides a poor framework for civics as a whole, giving students a distorted view of the social world and failing to motivate them for ethical civic engagement. I conclude with a sketch of a curriculum in which the US Constitution has a place, but a fairly modest one.

Transformative Learning and Civic Studies

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Newly in print: The Palgrave Handbook of Learning for Transformation, edited by Aliki Nicolaides, Saskia Eschenbacher, Petra T. Buergelt, Yabome Gilpin-Jackson, Marguerite Welch and Mitsunori Misawa (2022).

Although I am not deeply knowledgable about Transformative Learning, a movement launched by the sociologist Jack Mezirow, I like its emphasis on learning as a lifelong process of transforming one’s perspective on society.

This volume includes a chapter entitled “Reconsidering the Roots of Transformative Education: Habermas and Mezirow” by Saskia Eschenbacher and me (pp. 45-58). Our abstract:

Jack Mezirow acknowledged the deep influence of the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas (1929–) on the development of transformative learning. We describe some fundamental elements of Mezirow’s and Habermas’ thought, explore their affinities, and argue that Mezirow did not give adequate attention to two important themes in Habermas: the power and value of social movements and the need to reform the overall structure of a society to enable transformative learning. We argue that transformative learning would benefit from a deeper consideration of these topics. Finally, we introduce Civic Studies, a parallel intellectual movement that also owes much to Habermas, and we suggest a convergence.