ED200473.Pdf
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
DOCUMENT RESUME BD 200 473 SO 013 187 AUTHOR Butts, E. Freeman TITLE The Revival of Civic Learning; A Rationale for Citizenship Education in American Schocls. INSTITUTION Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, Bloomington, Ind. REPORT NO ISBN-0-87367-423-5 PUB DATE 80 NOTE 177p. AVAILABLE FRCM Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, Eighth and Union, Box 789, Bloomington, IN 47401 ($6.00). EDES PRICE MF01/PC08 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Citizenship Education; Critical Thinking; Educational History; *Educational Needs: *Educational Objectives; Educational Trends; Elementary secondary Education: moral Development: Political influences: Social Studies; values ABSTRACT The ideal of good citizenship is examined in light of current social and political unrest brought about, at least in part, by the agitation of special interest groups. Emphasis is placedon the role cf citizenship education in the schools. The monograph is intended particularly for educators who want to improve citizenship education programs. The document is presented in five chapters. Chapter one identifies the major citizenship education challenge of the 1980s as the conflict between privatism in politics (due to a deterioration of national trust in the political system) and pluralism in education (resulting from attitudes that glorified doing one's own thing and from the belief that, authority for education should rest primarily with the diverse pluralistic communities in American society) . Chapter two contrasts ideas of citizenship in modern democratic societies and in Greco-Roman republics. Zhapter three presents an historical perspective on citizenship education the United States from the 1770s to the 1970s. Chapter four identifies major approaches to reform of civic education, Including academic disciplines (particularly, history and sociology), law related education, social problems, critical thinkimg, values education, moral development, community involvement, and institutional school reform. The final chapter offers suggestions for improving citizenship education programs, including incorporating political values, political knowledge, and the. skills of political participation into the curriculum: encouraging common understanding of and commitment to democratic values: and encouraging student understanding of citizenship concepts .such as justice, freedom, equality, diversity, authority, privacy, due process, participatia, and international human rights. (US) ************************************** ********* *** _********* Reproductions supplied by EDES are the best that can be made from the original document. ******.*********************** ******************* ****************, The Revival of Civic Learning A Rationale for Citizenship Education in American Schools R. Freeman Bu William F. Russell Professor Emeritus in the Foundations of Education Teachers College. Columbia University , 0EPAtRTNAENTQF HEALTH "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS FOurar,QN 4 evELFARE MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY NaTaNAL INstITUTE 0 EDUCATION TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC),' A Publication of the Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation ign fr1 L "i tortL oelker <:l980 R Freeman Botts All rights reserved Congress Catalog Card Nu -r 80 =81870 ISBN 047367-423-5 Printed in the United States of America Table o Contents Per,onal 'Note I:1 he (h.tllen=c in the 19 so t.trn In1 ohne- -and Plurtiht.trn inducation 1 Pi-Raritan titPoltitet,, Plura 11,,in inI trucation 9 I he Idea in t,ittien,hip I he Oituin or Cititcniatip in Greco-Roman RL1. I he \I. Ide,1 111,10t PL'IN11 11%t itifenhip du in the unitti I he R,:t,itiiitionan. num. I he \diddle I he ( onlea Bett.teenI1111111 :111(1 l'11111fr/11, 1S:11.1-1S-.11 .111k1Prorct.....,otie Reform, Recut riti Rel t I ducation. I he PreNent II"reJmeantent tut CitirenNhip isducati Po....ahleI actor. in the Lillie in\clite.ciricnt 79 Sivn, ot I he Gatheringlornenturn Nialor Approachei, to the Return) i Fdocation . 1( -\ 1)(:,..a1(1,:tle Di:mot:rata: (tile Value, 17'1 !he SNtern 124 H.I he (t4 to Education Progi-tim 126 I he School Population 130 I. ,Itvaice 117 2:I-lc-cum-11 114 3 Equalit 137 41)1er,ati, 140 141 ['mac\ 144 Due Proc 145 sParticipation 147 9: Personal Ohlle ttitrn tor the Puhlic 1 150 10. International Ilunran Kl7t,, "153 Put- hcation of this monoQraph has been financed in part through a generous contribution from Miss Bessie Gabbard, a member of the Ohio State University Chapter of Phi Delta ,Kappa and a member (-.)1 the Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation Board 11 Governors. A Personal Note khis little book is frankly a very personal statement ofmy views con- cerning the cO. ic role of American schools. It doesnot represent the views of any organization or association, In itI have tried to bring together ideas thatI have expressed in one form or another overa period of years, I have tried to make it as coherent as I can in view of the fairly long period of time and the variety of experiences 1 have had with what I prefer to call civic education. In fact, as I think about it, I believe '.he concern began inmature and critical form in my first weeks as a freshman in theExperimental College at the University of Wisconsin where the required reading for all students was Plato's Republic. and the required subject of discussion was to grapple with Socrates and T7.rasyrnachus over the meaning of justice. And l soon began to learn about freedom from Alexander Meiklejohn. who was later to instruct the U.S. Supreme Courton that subject in relation to the First Amendment. And perhaps I had imbibed something about equality from earlier schooling in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln inSpring_field, Illinois. But this is not to be an autobiography. Yet, I believe the reader is entitled to know something about, in the present idiom, '.'wherel am coming from.- For 40 years at Teachers College, ColumbiaUniversity,the problem of educationina democratic society was a continuing subject of study. teaching, and writing during which I learned a great deal from working with and teaching with George Counts, John Childs, Bruce Raup, Harold Rugg. Lyman Bryson, and a number of other colleagues in the Department of Social and Philosophical Foundations, I was a little surprised to remind myself by looking at their books again recently that theyand ! talked unashamedly about citizenship and citizenship education. Ilearned about diversity by teaching courses and workshopson intercultural education (one particularly memorable workshop with Margaret Mead in New Rochelle, N. Y,) at Teachers College andat the University of Wisconsin in the 1940s. During the 1950s I learnedmore about freedom and especially about due process and the difference between authority and authoritarianism while I fought the coldwar againstMcCarthyismintheranks of the Academic Freedom Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union. Asa member of the executive committee of the Academic Freedom Project at Columbia University, I helped in the planning and critique of the major studies by Robert M. Maclver and the histories by Richard Hofstadter and Walter Nletzger. In the l960s l learned a great deal about international human rights and -culturalimperialism" while I was directing the far-flung international orogi anis (0 leachers t ollege rti As!a. _\frica,a I. Latin Amenca. In the 19-os I again learned a great deal about due proses, and "participation" as I experienced them in both the raucus "participator\ democracC of the campus crises at Columbia and in the quieter realms of de,igning broadened faCtilt \ and student roles for the governance of Teachers College, It the reader should hate the patience or interest to get to Chapter .5.I hone my refecences nett; to justice, freedom, equality, do. ersitv, due process. authority, participation. and human rights will take on more meanmg, f- nalit, a word about mt credentials in writing about cit is education, more ,peciticalb, conceited as program, of teaching and learning in the schools.l'hese, too, go back further than itis probably politic to mention Howe\ era one of rmt early memories about m\ schooling in the 1920s has to do with the slatI went ,h Iv as an eighth-grader down to the hig audttorrtrm at Springfield High School to receive the history medal tautt tranng a cit; wide contest sponsored bs ve,the I )auglitcr,.o American Resolution. Mercifully, I don't believe that essay is extant_ but surely it had to do with good cituenship and could not possibis, hate eriooked Washington Jefferson, and Lincoln. Hut tai come. hurriedly, closer to the present, In connection a ith the large and handsomely financed Cm/enship Education Project in the 1950s at Teachers College. I was a continuing consultant and drew up historical outlines for the "Premises of menean Liberty." In the 1960s I was on the executive hoard of the Center for Research and Education in American Liberties sponsored jointly ht Columbia and Teachers College under the leadership of Alan _ Followingm \retirement from Teachers College in1975.Iwas enabledto continue my studieswith the aid of aRockefeller Foundation HumanitiesFellowshipand byappointment as Distinguished Professor of Education at San Jose State Universi am especially grateful for these opportunities. At last,in the 1970s I was fortunate to be der ply invoked in a number of special civic education projects, some of which I mention in this hook. Especially useful in mv learning has been my membership on the Ad \ isory Commission of theSpecial Committee on Youth Education for Citirenship of the American Bar Association and membership on the executive committee of the Law in a Free Society Project. And I owe special thanks to the Dantorth Foundation, which, with the Kettering Foundation, sponsored the National Task Force on CM/en:ship Education, I served on the advisory committee of that task force and I was invited by the Danforth Foundation to act as consultant on cuts t tin n to 197"-7X, during which time I learned far more from the projects the foundation was helping to support than I could Si possihk contribute Imams no apologi.