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Everyone agrees civics education needs redefining, but the concept is becoming too broadand some new initiatives may lead to further polarization. Instead of rethinking civics, we need to rethink basic assumptions about teaching and learning.

The 2016 election sparked a wave of concern over civics education that is still gathering strength. The Chief Justice recently bemoaned the fact that civics education has fallen by the wayside. At the same time, theres no shortage of attempts to bring it back. Impeachment is being seen as a teachable moment, and civics lessons are even showing up in math classes. The federal government has awarded $650,000 to iCivics, along with some universities, to improve the teaching of both history and civics. And as documented in a recent 99-page report, the landscape of current civics education efforts is dizzying.

While theres a plethora of initiatives, the common refrain is that the old approach to civicsa high school class that lasts at least a semester, required in most statesjust doesnt cut it these days, if it ever did.

The developments of the last few years have been catalogued in an engaging book by education journalist Holly Korbey called Building Better Citizens: A New Civics Education for All, published this fall. The new civics includes everything from media literacy to character education to lessons in having a civil conversation. And as Korbey notes, if you want high-schoolers to grasp civics, its crucial to start building their knowledge of history in elementary school. [Disclosure: Korbey quotes me in her discussion of that issue.]

But the definition of new civics is so broad it verges on being meaningless. Korbeys book encompasses the stories of a student with autism who speaks out on behalf of others with special needs; a program that has kids visiting nursing homes; and the reinvention of a library as a community center where teenagers surf the internet in one corner while retirees chat over coffee in another.

One anecdote describes a high school teacher in New Orleans who brought her students to the Mississippi River, which borders the city, only to discover that none of them could name the body of water they were looking at. Having some experience of high-poverty high schoolswhere its not uncommon to find students who cant locate the city they live in on a map of the United Statesthe only thing that surprised me about this story was that the problem is portrayed as a failure of civics education (and the solution a form of it called place-based education). Why not see it as a failure to teach basic geography?

Towards the end of the book, in a discussion of the need to enable students to distinguish reliable from unreliable information on the internet, Korbey quotes researchers who caution that online reasoning shouldnt be limited to just civics or politics, but a given part of every classroom subject, including science and math. Thats true of many other aspects of learning now being swept under the umbrella of civics. We dont just need a new approach to civics; we need a new approach to school. Among other things, we need to jettison the mistaken idea that if kids can Google something, theres no reason to teach it.

But theres a basic truth at the heart of these sometimes frantic efforts to turn teenagers into engaged citizens: civics as traditionally conceived is boring. Unlike history, which can be presented as a series of stories involving characters and conflict, civics covers dry abstractions like the three branches of government. If you dont know basics like the difference between a city and a statethe situation in which many high school students find themselves because of deficiencies in our education systemthese concepts will be hard to grasp. Even if you do, you may find your eyes beginning to close.

The initiative thats getting the most buzz is action civics, which is covered in Korbeys bookand its close cousin youth participatory action research or YPAR, which isnt. Both of these approaches are supposed to inculcate the kind of knowledge that civics courses try and generally fail to impart, but to make the process more engaging by hitching it to action or advocacy.

Action Civics turns traditional civics upside down, one activist in the movement has explained. Instead of starting at the top with the Constitution and how a bill becomes a law, our hands-on teaching starts with a community or personal issue and works up through local government and politics and then to the federal system.

Students are encouraged to identify an issue they care deeply about and perhaps know from personal experience. One description of YPAR gives as examples issues of oppression like Islamophobia in America and Black girls experience in the school-to-prison pipeline. In Korbys book, a class with many immigrant students decides to work on making it easier for undocumented people to get drivers licenses. Research is supposed to be involved, but the key element is actionperhaps lobbying or protesting. In a sign of how widely accepted the idea is becoming, one of the largest school districts in the country is now permitting students in 7th grade and above to take one day off each year for civic engagement activities.

Its not hard to see how this approach could lead to political controversy: what if a student at a generally progressive school wants to advocate for an issue like gun rights? Beyond that, its not clear action civics will give students what they need to be responsible citizens. Its generally agreed that the goals for civics include reducing political polarization, fostering critical thinking, and teaching students to evaluate evidence. Having kids choose a topic they already have strong feelings about may not be the best way of achieving those objectives. Its well established that when people have a strongly held belief, theyre more likely to accept evidence that supports that belief and dismiss evidence that conflicts with it. One commentator has argued that civics should enable students to to defend a position on an issue that they dont themselves hold. Action civics is more likely to further entrench them in their preexisting perspectives.

Action civics is also designed to show students they have the power to effect change. But in our system of checks, balances, and generally sluggish legislative processes, many projects are likely to end in disappointment. Not every teenager can attract attention at the level of a Greta Thunberg or a David Hoggand even they dont yet have much to point to in the way of concrete change. Students whose action fails to lead anywhere could just end up cynical and disillusioned.

But there may be another way of engaging kids in civic activities that avoids these pitfallsand also helps address a different but equally serious civics-related problem: the precipitous decline of local journalism. In the last 15 years, more than 1,800 local print outlets have gone out of business, and at least 200 American counties have no newspaper at all. Even where newspapers and radio stations survive, theyve cut back on staff. The result has been termed a crisis in local news coverage that has damaged political and civic life.

In some areas, college newspapers are filling the void, covering city council and school board meetings. Why not have high school students do that too? True, there are obstaclesnot the least of which is that our deeply flawed approach to writing instruction has left many teenagers unable to express themselves well in writing. But with the right kind of support from adults, perhaps including laid-off journalists, they might acquire crucial writing skills while performing a public serviceand gain an understanding of how government works. Kids who really struggle with writing could produce a news podcast.

And instead of acting on a preconceived notion of what needs to change, students might learn to stand back from an issue and see another side. One student in a high school journalism class produced a story revealing that the school had used prison labor to refurbish its auditorium. While he started from a position of outrage, his teacher helped him learn to find journalistic balance, and he ended up modifying his views.

Having teenagers serve as amateur journalists isnt the only kind of action that can have this kind of effect. Debate also has potential, especially if students dont just take positions they already support. But the bottom line is that we cant expect civics, new or old, to address all the issues that prevent kids from becoming engaged and responsible citizens. They go much deeper than that, and call for more pervasive solutions.

Originally posted here:

To Educate Good Citizens, We Need More Than The New Civics - Forbes