LWV Solano County Blog #1, July 1, 2021

After one of the most tumultuous years—politically, socially, and economically—many are asking ‘how did we get here?’ The Educating for American Democracy (EAD)* initiative has found that ignorance of history and civics allows fear to fuel attacks on facts and truth that are consistent with the intellectual standards important to reasoning in everyday life; standards such as clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, logic, and fairness.

Educators and schools have a responsibility to ensure that young people become engaged and knowledgeable citizens.  Yet, a direct line can be drawn from a long-standing failure to adequately teach American government, history, and civic responsibility information needed to sustain our democracy.  Only nine (9) states and the District of Columbia require one year of U.S. government or Civics at the high-school level. (California is NOT included.)

In addition, state civics curricula are light on building critical thinking skills or providing service-learning opportunities that engage students in relevant project-based learning to raise awareness of how to get involved in the issues of their communities; to garner a better understanding of how government systems work; and how individuals can participate in the processes of electing, debating, governing, and consensus reaching.

In a comprehensive effort to effectively address this educational failure, a diverse team of collaborators from iCivics, Harvard, and Tufts University, funded by the National Endowment for Humanities and the U.S. Department of Education, released a 39-page *Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy on March 2, 2021 accompanied by a 36-page report, this Educating for American Democracy (EAD) initiative focuses on a framework that reflects the work of more than 300 non-partisan scholars, educators, and practitioners. The goal of EAD is to build excellence in civics and history education for America’s K-12 students.  It lays out extensive guidance for improving and reimagining the teaching of social studies, history, and civics and then, implementing it over the next decade.

The Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy is organized around themes, and for each theme, thematic questions are posed from history and from civics. The map and themes are integrated and complementary and both need to be addressed. For example, a history question would be, “Who are we, the people of the United States, and how has the nation’s population changed over time?” The civic thematic question would be “Why is constitutional democracy dependent on the idea of ‘the People’.”

This teaching methodology calls for less date memorization and instead takes an inquiry-based approach that will also develop critical thinking. Skills needed to think critically are observation, analysis, interpretation, reflection, evaluation, influence, explanation, problem-solving, and decision-making. These skills teach how to deduce information to find the most important parts and apply those to help students better understand themselves, their motivations, and goals.  Take a discussion of the historical event, the Boston Tea Party. The EAD roadmap’s driving questions would be, ”What was the experience of the British government? Of British colonies? Of Indigenous Americans? Of enslaved Americans and indentured Americans?” What students need, the report argues, is not a laundry list of facts, but a process that produces a better understanding of how the country’s history shaped its present.

“Civics and history education have eroded in the U.S. over the past 50 years, and opportunities to learn these subjects are inequitably distributed,” the report states. Therefore, the EAD initiative is a call to action to invest in strengthening history and civic learning to ensure that civic learning opportunities and engagement are delivered equitably throughout the country. Consider, if you will, how far ahead America would be in its race relations if, for example, the Tulsa Massacre had been taught in schools via these seven themes of the EAD inquiry-based roadmap: civic participation; our changing landscapes; we the people; a new government and constitution; institutional and social transformation; a people in the world; and a people with contemporary debates and possibilities.

The question now has become ‘how do we get past this with our democracy intact?’ Perhaps with the EAD roadmap, a long-term project designed to rebuild the heart of excellence and civic learning. But, most assuredly we can move forward by first acknowledging the need to teach our collective history, and to provide all students a civics education that informs how government works and encourages political engagement. In the short term, however, we as League members and supporters, must stand up against voter suppression laws, and advocate for historical truth (even when uncomfortable), and justice for all.

The EAD initiative informs us that the relative neglect of history and civic education in the past half-century is one important cause of our civic and political dysfunction. Another is the lack of critical thinking skills. And while it is the responsibility of schools and educators to make sure students are knowledgeable, it is our responsibility as parents, citizens—stewards of our communities—to make sure that every aspect of our children’s education is addressed, ensuring that they enter society respectful of humanity with a community mindset, eager to participate, and prepared to be productive citizens.

In addition, school boards and states across the country are now legislating what and how to teach history, including condemning the New York Times 1619 Project—17 creative texts that explore major events in U.S. history aiming to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the center of our national narrative -- and the academic legal concept of Critical Race Theory, “an intellectual movement and a framework of legal analysis according to which (1) race is a culturally invented category used to oppress people of colour and (2) the law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist insofar as they function to create and maintain social, political, and economic inequalities between white and nonwhite people.” All adding up to a real democracy-buster exemplified by the push to characterize the insurrection at our Capitol, witnessed in real-time around the world, as a mere tour of the Capitol.           

All hands are needed at this challenging time to build a new foundation for excellence in history and civic education.  This EAD finding concurs and amplifies the League’s mission of doing the work to preserve and sustain our democracy while making sure it works for all.