Civics

On my desk, you’ll find a small textbook, “First Lessons in Civics,” published in 1898. The book is a relic, yet I find many of its lessons enlightening, causing me to wonder why civics is no longer standard curriculum in our country’s schools. According to the National Education Association, only 25% of U.S. students reach the “proficient” standard on the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress Civics Assessment. Apparently, we are still assessing civics nationally, even though it’s not been widely taught since the 1960s.

According to the Illinois State Board of Education, civics is a mandatory component of social studies in Illinois, with a semester-long civics course required for high school graduation, and a semester of civics for middle schoolers, mandated as of the 2020-21 school year.

I don’t remember learning civics in school. I do remember taking the constitution test as a requirement for high school graduation and writing out the Preamble. Having watched a lot of Saturday morning television in the late 70s and early 80s, I had the “School House Rock” advantage. To this day, I can recite, er sing, the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of “America-ah.”

I guess I’ve always had a general idea of what civics is as a subject area, but, to get the specifics, I had to look it up … “Civics is the study of the rights, duties, and privileges of citizens and how government works. It encompasses learning how to participate in a community, understanding governmental structures at local, state, and federal levels, and developing the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to be an active and informed member of society.”

That’s pretty broad, which explains why my antique textbook includes chapters on The Government of Self, The Family (two chapters), The Government of Schools (also two chapters), Citizenship – Who Are Citizens, Civil Rights, and all the expected chapters on voting, elections and the various levels of government and laws. These lessons demonstrate that civics is foundational and it’s not just about acquiring the knowledge; it’s about using it.

In teaching civics, my textbook extols the importance of continually engaging pupils in debate “where questions of public interest are discussed fully and fairly.” While the textbook is antiquated, learning to debate fully and fairly is useful today. The importance of debate is further explained in the text:

By means of debate they may learn to tolerate and respect the opinions of others, to recognize the work of others, to express themselves with candor but not with violence and abuse, to abandon notions based upon ignorance and prejudice, to submit gracefully to defeat.

As a society, I feel we spend a lot of time debating, having not fully learned tolerance, respect, how to abandon ill-based notions, and how to submit gracefully to defeat. I would not have thought to look to civics lessons to learn these skills, and I’m curious to know how they are being taught today in families, churches, and schools.

On a related note, Greater Rockford Chamber of Commerce has offered our support to the RPS205 Board of Education in selecting our largest school district’s next superintendent. You can read about the expectations drafted by our task force in this issue of the VOICE. One of the areas we call out is “Employability Skills.” We ask for a “commitment to integrating employability skills into classroom teaching and extracurricular activities with clear metrics that are regularly reported to evaluate students’ improvements.”

The Illinois Essential Employability Skills Framework was developed in collaboration with the Illinois Community College Board; the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity; representatives of Illinois businesses; local chambers of commerce; and secondary, postsecondary and adult educators. These professionals identified ten skills related to personal ethic, work ethic, communication, and teamwork. A few of them take a page right out of my old-school civics handbook: integrity, respect, perseverance, and positive attitude.

Whether taught through civics lessons, math class, art school, or tennis club—skills for being a good citizen are still relevant and needed more than ever. I don’t think we should solely rely on our schools to teach them. I think we should all strive to practice and impart the ten skills: integrity, respect, perseverance, positive attitude, dependability, professionalism, active listening, clear communication, critical thinking, and effective and cooperative work. Perhaps as a first step, we could memorize them by turning them into a song. “We the people …”