Yahoo is reporting that the Florida Bar is concerned that Floridians can't identify the three branches of government or the concept of checks and balances, and wants to increase the number of students taking Civics classes in the state. I have no problem with that - when I was a junior high student in Hillsborough County, Fla, we took a semester of civics, a semester of economics, and a full year of U.S. History. If anything, the civics and economics curricula should be expanded to a full year each. The question is what gets dropped in order to accommodate those needs.
It's hard to argue that civics, economics, U.S. History, and World History shouldn't have a greater role in secondary education - they are the basis for any reasonable understanding of the world, and in my personal opinion should take precedence over elective items like sociology and psychology, which might be interesting for students, but aren't exactly necessary for creating good citizens.
Creatign good citizens is, after all, one of the goals of our elementary and secondary schools. Note that I'm not talking good "patriots" here, but good "citizens". The difference being that a good citizen is capable of, and willing to, responsibly carry out their duties as Americans. That means voting on the issues, not on ads. It means understanding who their representatives are, and what kind of job they are doing. It means becoming productive members of society. I would hope that the qualities that make good citizens would also produce patriots; real patriots, not jingoistic nationalists like the President and his supporters think we should be, but people who believe in the ideals of our nation, and are prepared to work toward them.
Our schools are not producing these types of citizens, as shown by the past several elections, and by the national and state polls the Florida Bar finds alarming. The fact that the people of Florida don't understand basic civics is why the President is able to argue that he is above the law, that he can ignore Congress, and that people who disagree with his policies are irresponsible. This lack of understanding is why people are not more outraged at the NSA's wiretapping efforts, which began before Septeber 11, 2001, not in response to the attacks on that date. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011306Z.shtml
Posted by Chris at January 13, 2006 04:34 PM