Poor Elijah’s Almanack: Ignorance and Tyranny

BY PETER BERGER
Back in Cicero’s day, the simple declaration, “I am a Roman citizen,” conveyed significant rights and responsibilities. A wise Roman knew what they were.

Today, judging by the multitudes still flocking to our borders, and despite the ebbing respect accorded us as a world leader, native-born Americans aren’t alone in prizing United States citizenship. Unfortunately, our civic knowledge falls short of our pride.

Consider a few questions immigrants seeking U.S. citizenship must answer. Can you name the three federal branches and their responsibilities? How do we elect a President? Who has the power to declare war? How did we become a nation? What’s in the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence? Which amendments guarantee voting rights?

Could most Americans answer these questions? The U.S. Department of Education reports that fifty-five percent of high school seniors lack even a “basic” knowledge of our history. Barely twelve percent are rated “proficient.” These dismal numbers haven’t changed for decades.

A government of the people by the people can’t afford ignorance. Jefferson warned us that, “if a nation expects to be ignorant and free…it expects what never was and never will be.”

Until the 1970s civics courses were standard for most high school graduates, but by 1994 enrollment had dropped to one in ten students. Some schools have reinstituted civics classes, and if we want students to understand the rights and duties of citizenship and how their government works, it makes sense to teach them more about it. But teaching more civics isn’t as simple as scheduling more classes that include the word.

The nationwide Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools promotes “civic learning” to equip young Americans with “skills, knowledge, and attitudes” to prepare them to be “competent and responsible citizens.” CMS proponents worry that Americans are increasingly “disengaging from civic and political institutions.” To ensure that students are “educated for citizenship,” CMS outlined four goals and “six promising approaches to civic education.”

At first glance CMS intentions, like creating “informed and thoughtful citizens,” seem commendable. Most of the goals, though, target attitudes, advocacy, and general skills like critical thinking, “group problem solving,” “protesting,” and “entering into dialogue” involving “different perspectives.” Only one addresses a “grasp and appreciation of history and the fundamental processes of American democracy.”

Even the single point that mentions “instruction in government, history, law, and democracy” prohibits teaching “rote facts about dry procedures” on the grounds that this kind of information might “alienate [students] from politics.” In other words, don’t expect them to learn too much or they’ll lose interest.

That doesn’t sound like the civic education, or citizenry, Jefferson had in mind. I’m not interested in encouraging people to have a say in government if they can’t be bothered with the often less than fascinating details of how it works.

Advocates contend that learning “inquiry skills” is more important than learning history itself. For most of us, though, mastering a general survey of our history and the Constitution is more vital than conducting an extended, inquiry-based, “robust investigation” of life in colonial Maryland.

Along with Jefferson’s call to teach students “to read, to judge and to vote understandingly,” schools’ civic mission is to explain our history and how our government works. Reformers, however, counter that civics education’s primary purpose is to induce students to participate. According to CMS, schools should “pursue civic outcomes” rather than concentrate on “academic performance.” CMS wants students to “participate in the management of their own classrooms.” Schools are expected to require “community service” and design civics courses around “issues students find personally relevant.”

I consult my students’ interests. I encourage them to think and express their opinions. But I’m not putting them in charge in the hope that excessive, premature power will hook them into participating. I’m also not going to rely on an uninformed fourteen-year-old’s definition of relevance.

The first step in civics education is teaching students that they aren’t the center of the universe.

I was a Boy Scout and a hospital volunteer. That said, it isn’t a school’s job to require community service. CMS argues that schools need to assume this responsibility because other “non-school institutions,” like families, churches, and community groups, have “lost the capacity or will.” It’s time we recognized that schools have finite resources. We can’t do everything, we’re not good at everything, and the more everything gets dumped on us, the worse we do our real job — teaching academics.

Besides, many of the service tasks students complete for graduation don’t amount to much.

If we want to teach students about justice, we shouldn’t put them in charge of student courts and discipline. Instead we should show them how adults fairly and effectively administer justice in school. If we want to teach them how to govern their towns and their nation, we shouldn’t make it seem easy and fact-free.

I tell my students they are the heirs of the Republic. I tell them to look around the room because the people they see will be running things. How many, I ask, will be prepared when it’s their turn?

There is far more to our present crisis than our national ignorance of the Constitution. Self-interest, incompetence, cowardice, deceit, mania, and treachery are bringing us nearer to disaster than we realize.

Our ignorance, however, leaves us weak and susceptible to tyranny.

And tyranny, like hell, is not easily overcome.

Peter Berger teaches English at Weathersfield School. Poor Elijah would be pleased to answer letters addressed to him in care of the editor.