Lessons in civics crucial for youths
After every election comes the handwringing. Why didn’t more people vote? Don’t they care?
Those who care the least, apparently, are Californians from ages 18 to 34. Most have opinions on, say, “America’s Next Top Model,” but an overwhelming majority decline to cast a vote for governor or mayor, let alone the local school board.
For the past three years, many smart people have spent many hours pondering why this is so and have come to a conclusion: If young people lack a sense of civic responsibility, perhaps no one taught them it was important.
Like so many other once-important subjects in public K-12 classrooms – art, music, home economics, penmanship – civics education has been de-emphasized, to our collective detriment.
Policymakers must have reasoned that kids could learn about how laws are made after they grasp algebra, reading and science. After all, that’s what students are being tested on and how their teachers are being judged. So, teachers who want to keep their jobs emphasize those core subjects. And students don’t recognize the importance of elections.
We can’t and won’t pin all the blame on schools. When we have an election every six months, it’s hard to get excited. When political commercials seem to run continuously on television, it creates a virtual sickness. When so many candidates are excoriating their opponents – calling them everything from crook to troll – why bother voting for any of them?
Increasingly, the same applies to their parents. California ranks 38th in civic engagement. At least we’re not Texas (48th) or West Virginia (last). But let’s not win this race to the bottom.
After all, the fewer people who vote the fewer the number of people who are actually invested in the decisions made for all of us. That threatens our democracy. We can do better. Fortunately, those very smart people we mentioned above have a plan.
In coming months, people in six California counties will be visiting school districts asking them to formally recommit to teaching civics starting in elementary school and not ending until graduation. Called Power of Democracy, its plan for rebuilding civics education in state schools sprang from the California Task Force on K-12 Civic Learning. With districts already dealing with enormous changes (Common Core, Local Control Funding), the task force will try gentle persuasion from groups of civic leaders who will visit individual school boards.
Ours is not among those six counties, but we don’t need to wait. Several organizations offer free lesson plans, webcasts, training and games for the asking. At www.icivics.org, lesson plans start with fifth grade, talking about the Constitution and offering a game where the winners sit in the Oval Office. Funding for iCivics comes from the Carnegie, MacArthur and Gates foundations among others. Annenberg Classroom offers a vast list of resources, from the American Bar Association to the Library of Congress – all with tools for teachers.
We know it’s hard for teachers to find time to teach one more priority. This one, though, is worth the effort.
This story was originally published February 5, 2015 at 6:14 PM with the headline "Lessons in civics crucial for youths."