The Importance of Civic Education

“The better educated our citizens are, the better equipped they will be to preserve the system of government we have. And we have to start with the education of our nation’s young people. Knowledge about our government is not handed down through the gene pool. Every generation has to learn it, and we have some work to do.”

—Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

 “America as a new nation was not created out of devotion to a motherland, a royal family, or a national religion. Americans are instead defined by our fidelity to certain ideals, expressed in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments. While citizenship is formally acquired through either birth or naturalization, all of us must learn to become Americans. Peoples from diverse cultural, religious, and racial backgrounds can fully join the American community by sharing its defining commitments. If Americans are not bound together by common values, we will become fragmented and turn on one another.”

—Guardian of Democracy: The Civic Mission of Schools (2003)

In the report, “Guardian of Democracy: The Civic Mission of Schools” (2003), produced by a variety of educational organizations and institutions dedicated to civic education, the importance of civics education is framed within the structure of maintaining and enhancing Democracy for the future. Civics education is explained as a right of every citizen. Citizens of the United States are, by birth or naturalization, afforded a number of rights. However, these rights are not worth very much unless citizens understand how to access them. The United States is incredibly large, and diverse, and what binds Americans together is their shared responsibility for, and in, government. However, once again, to value and utilize their role as American citizens, students must first know what this means. Who then is responsible for teaching Americans what it means to be a critically engaged citizen?

This report argues that, as this is a set of knowledge and skills that all citizens deserve, and need, access to, it must be taught in schools. “Competent and responsible citizens” are informed and thoughtful, participate in their communities, act politically and have concern for moral and civic virtues (p. 6). These are skills that can, and must, be taught to students – if the goal is to have an active, engaged, and informed citizenry.

            Schools, and teachers, teach on two levels: the surface concepts and skill sets that make up each discipline, and the larger concepts and skill that are much more subjective, but also help the student realize their role in the world. Ideally both these “thinking skills” and the content are combined and taught together. The term “21^st century competencies” gets thrown around a lot right now – people are realizing that in an ever “flattening” world the skills that students need to know go far beyond the mimetic. What this means to me is that students need to know how to interact with each other, and the wider world, be engaged and see themselves as change-makers. These texts, the report “Guardian of Democracy: The Civic Mission of Schools” (2003) as well as Wayne Journall’s piece, “Standardizing Citizenship: The Potential Influence of State Curriculum Standards on the Civic Development of Adolescents” (2010), reminded me that this is not a new concept, but rather one that a lot of the history of public education in the United States is based on. While STEM skills are important, especially for economic viability, having a hierarchy of academic importance, where the humanities are cut to make way for math, or vice versa, is not helping students. No skill set will be complete if students do not know how to take their knowledge and use it locally, nationally, and globally. The report, “Guardians of Democracy” offers many recommendations, as to how schools can better prepare students for civic involvement, one of which is to “view civic learning as an interdisciplinary subject that can and should be employed across the curriculum (p. 41).” There is a danger in having schools, teachers, parents, and students see civics as something that is only taught in classes such as Civics or AP Government. There are great opportunities to focus on civic learning in all content areas and should not be regulated to one class, or one area of the curricula, especially within the Social Studies.