Parents Should Guide Their Children’s Civic Education Issue: American Civics By David Randall
What should parents look for in a K-12 civics curriculum for their children? I’ve been asked that question a lot since the release of “Learning for Self-Government: A K–12 Civics Report Card,” a report I wrote that surveys popular civics curricula. One short answer is the Curriculum Sketch. Another answer is Hillsdale College’s 1776 Curriculum, which is the gold standard for civics in 2022. But here’s a longer answer – an answer that will help parents ask their own questions as they examine the civics curricula used in their children’s schools.
Parents should look for a civics curriculum that teaches the nuts and bolts of American government. Their children should learn what the Constitution is and how it works. They should learn how state and local government works. If they hear a politician say, “I’ll do this,” their children should know if he’d be breaking the law if he tried to do that.
Parents should look for a civics curriculum that teaches the moral beliefs of the American Founders, so their children can learn why and for what purposes the Founders created our government. The Founders believed in limited government, because they saw that individuals were fallible. They believed in free government, because they reasoned that people were best suited to choose their own happiness. Students need to know our republic’s moral foundations to be able to pass on the blessings of liberty to future generations.
Parents should look for a civics curriculum that gives students a vocabulary that accompanies being a free citizen. Their children shouldn’t rely on the paraphrases of teachers and textbooks. They should read the words themselves. They should study the Constitution and The Federalist, The Gettysburg Address and Brown v. Board of Education – all our documents of freedom. Children become citizens by reading the words of these key texts themselves, thinking about them, and acting on them.
Parents should look for a civics curriculum that instills pride in America without erasing Americans’ all-too-human faults. Our children should know that we are proud of our achievements – not least because we’ve struggled at times to follow our better angels.
Parents should watch out for radical indoctrination that calls itself civics education. They should avoid anything that labels itself “action civics,” “civic engagement,” or “service learning” – anything that substitutes action outside the classroom for study within it. That sort of civics overwhelmingly tends to be vocational training in progressive activism; it never seems to promote organizing for the March for Life. At best it wastes precious time that could be spent on classroom learning. At worst it smuggles in radical ideological commitments into the classroom.
The most difficult task for parents is looking for political bias in curriculum – to see what it mentions and to notice what it leaves out. Does a curriculum praise popular activism by mentioning the women’s rights movement – but not Phyllis Schlafly’s campaign to stop the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s? Does an examination of the Bill of Rights skim over the right to bear arms? Does a civics lesson plan use the phrase “undocumented immigrants” rather than “illegal aliens”? Does a lesson plan on city politics fail to include the option of lowering taxes? Parents need to read slowly and ask if alternative viewpoints have been minimized or erased.
These are the questions parents need to be asking when they’re examining how their schools teach their children.
But civics education can’t just be a job for schools. Even the best curriculum can be twisted by cynical teachers to foster hatred of America. What should parents do themselves to teach their children about civics?
Parents should make patriotism part of their daily life. They can fly the flag and teach their children about flag etiquette. They can buy posters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and teach their children to read from them.
Parents should read their children books about American history, like Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet’s poetry collection “A Book of Americans,” Esther Forbes’s “Johnny Tremain,” “The Little House” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and John Fitzgerald’s “Great Brain” books. Then they should have them read more mature works such as Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer” and Vachel Lindsay’s “Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan.” They should make sure their children know the wonderful riches of American literature.
Parents should sing patriotic songs like the National Anthem, “America the Beautiful,” and “God Bless America” and other classics from the American songbook like “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “The Battle of New Orleans.” They should have their children take part in Memorial Day parades. They should take family vacations to Revolutionary War battlefields. They should take part in government themselves by becoming members of their local school board.
Parents should live as civic-minded Americans. That is the best sort of civics education for their children.
David Randall is Director of Research at the National Association of Scholars.
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