A new article on Education Week details how some scholars are saying that teaching civics is equally important as math or literacy. They say that schools needs to realign priorities and bring civics back to the classroom.
Civics, which teaches not only civic responsibility but also how to read and interpret the news and other important skills to be an active citizen with a voice, used to be a main stay in American schools. But public education has seemingly moved away from this.
What do you think? Is teaching civics one of those must-learn subjects for students?
I think teaching Civics is an
I think teaching Civics is an important topic to teach in high schools. If there is not a government class then I believe civics needs to be implemented into English and Social Studies. I don’t think civics is more important than math and literacy. If students don’t know how to read and comprehend, because they don’t know strategies to help them figure out words they don’t know then they won’t be able to read and interrupt news and politics. The same with math, if students don’t have a solid foundation in math, then we can’t expect them to read polls, data and other information based on numbers. I think literacy and math are more important than civics, because without them students will not be able to interpret the information to have an educational voice in society. Instead, I think civics should be taught as a unit within literacy so that way the teacher can support the students based on their literacy skills as she integrates the two content areas.
What would the world be like without Civics?
As a former Social Studies teacher, I can tell you that SS is just as important as any other subject. Students are expected to graduate and become competent citizens, and SS is the subject that trains them to be just that. It may not be one of the "sexy" subjects, but could you imagine a world without Social Studies?
Civic should also be taught
Civic should also be taught as it is also important for the child's everyday life.
If the question is so clear
If the question is so clear -- that we should be teaching civics -- why aren't schools doing it? And how do we bring it back to the classroom with a modern curriculum, as Jason suggested?
I think the bigger question
I think the bigger question here is not, "should we teach civics," of course we should. The real question is curriculem bused. What is civics? Is it news literacy? Citizenship? Multiculturalism? It's all of these things, but sadly, until there is a national curriculem standard, civics will contiunue to be taught with regional differences and biases. Personally I feel like there should be a stronger emphasis on global citizenship and our place in the world given that we are living in a global economy.
Resources available
There are plenty of resource avialble for schools wanting to address civics. Here's one great list:
Programs and organizations that promote civic engagement in schools
Yes
Yahoo! is probably the fifth biggest Web site or right in that vicinity.
Yes.
I might call it something sexier, but, yes.
Get off my lawn
It can be tough these days finding kids who have anything to say or any frame of referrence. We do need to teach that scanning the trending box on Yahoo! or looking at your Facebook feed is not the same as reading the newspaper.
People still use Yahoo!?
People still use Yahoo!?
Let's get back to the
Let's get back to the question at hand. Curriculum and even purpose aside: Is civics a necessary class in high schools?
Civics is about making your
Civics is about making your voice heard in your community -- and being knowledgable enough to have something to say.
USA! USA!
I think the flag-toting side has to tone down the "you can't criticize anyhting and still love America" rhetoric and the other side has to embrace that this is their country. Civics should be about embraing our differences and working things out through our inelegant, but emminently fluid system.
Big, messy diversity
I agree regionally there are differences in "pro-USA" feelings. Civics education was hot around the same time that people had no qualms about the pledge of allegiance...now people get testy if kids are required to recite it in class.
Oddly, though, civics is about embracing the big, messy diversity that is democracy, not about saying the U.S. is perfect.
News and literacy
Of course, using news is one way to teach literacy. I used to read the paper every morning before school. While the "paper" may not be print, there i still plenty of word-base news that can be used in the classroom. You can kill two birds with one stone, which I'm all in favor of as I don't like birds.
It's easy to look at this and
It's easy to look at this and say "oh, come on, math and literacy are way more important," but are they? Granted, those subjects are the backbone of daily life -- but so is civics, which teachs not just media literacy and how to read the news, but also about citizenship and creating change when it's needed. It doesn't get much more important than that. If you don't know civics, it's easy to become a complacent citizen and not do anything to make things better (but complain all the same).
Weird America battle
I think there's also a weird battle where in part of the country you have to be a flag-shirt wearing patriotic yahoo and in others, you almost can't say you love the country,
News and schools...
I think in general, schools have ran away from talking about current events aisde from the very major things. Interpreting the news and just knowing how to get news is a very important skill -- made all the more important as we witness the death of the printed newspaper. Kids need skills in how to judge value of news. Did a reporter write it? Was it user submitted? Did anyone edit or fact check?
As for having a voice, we live in a time where everyone can have a voice, but too few have anyhting of interest to say.
Yes, we need it!
I think we still get some aspects of this in school, called various things such as media literacy (though we could certainly use more of that). But the parts having to do with feeling a responsibility toward your neighbors and community--and participating in the democratic process--are sadly all but dead. Ever read the book Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam? The decline of civics education I think mirrors the breakdown of the American community, and the results are not good: persistent concentrated poverty in some neighborhoods, apathy toward the political process, people feeling disconnected and not treating each other well, etc.
If we're already doing character education, bullying prevention, service learning, media literacy, or even just plain old history/social studies class, facets of what used to be called "civics" can easily be woven in.