BACKGROUND:
At a White House event this past January, the Obama Administration released its Road Map for civic learning, “Advancing Civic Learning and Engagement in Democracy.” This Road Map, developed by the U.S. Department of Education (ED), is a call to action to reinvigorate civic learning and engagement for students, families, communities and leaders in education, business, labor, philanthropy and government. We envision a nationwide commitment to preparing all students for citizenship as informed, engaged and responsible members of our society. The Road Map outlines nine steps ED is undertaking to increase civic learning and engagement across our country. You are invited to watch the release event and read ED’s Road Map to learn more.
THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Since the release of the Road Map, ED has been implementing a strategy to achieve its nine objectives. As part of this process, ED is seeking the public’s input on how we understand “civic learning and engagement activities” and how we can best support these activities. We encourage educators, practitioners, students, researchers, and any other interested parties to submit opinions, ideas, suggestions and comments pertaining to the outline below:
A. How ED Defines “Civic Learning and Engagement”
Activities that help students become informed and engaged members of society by providing nonpartisan opportunities for development of civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Civic learning and engagement activities include:
- Development, through the study of American history, civics and government, of students’ foundational civic knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors.
- Participation in interactive activities (e.g., service learning, community-based projects, simulations, media campaigns, advocacy, etc.) that provide students the opportunity to apply their learning to the needs of their community through action and reflection, thus broadening understanding of how to apply knowledge to improve societal outcomes. Activities should be selected and organized with input from faculty and students and can be developed in partnership with educational institutions, faith and/or community-based organizations, government agencies, philanthropies, businesses, and other stakeholders.
B. How ED will Support Civic Learning
Of the nine objectives ED is implementing to support civic learning and engagement activities, we specifically request feedback on how to best:
- Convene and catalyze the education community to increase and enhance high-quality civic learning and engagement opportunities.
- Identify civic learning and engagement indicators to measure student outcomes and encouraging further research to learn more about appropriate and effective program design.
- Leverage federal investments and public-private partnerships to support civic learning and engagement activities where permitted and feasible.
- Highlight and promote civic learning and engagement opportunities for students, families and other stakeholders as collaborators and problem-solvers in education.
Please submit all comments to civiclearning@ed.gov or post them on directly on this blog.
This is a moderated site. That means all comments will be reviewed before posting. We intend to post all responsive submissions on a timely basis. We reserve the right not to post comments that are unrelated to this request, are inconsistent with ED’s Web site policies, are advertisements or endorsements, or are otherwise inappropriate. To protect your own privacy and the privacy of others, please do not include personally identifiable information such as Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers or email addresses in the body of your comment. For more information, please be sure to read the “comments policy” tab at the top of the Web page.
The fine print: Please understand that posts must be related to Civic Learning Initiative, we encourage posts that are as specific as possible, and, as appropriate, supported by data and relevant research. Posts must be limited to 1,000 words. All opinions, ideas, suggestions and comments are considered informal input. If you include a link to additional information in your post, we urge you to ensure that the linked-to information is accessible to all individuals, including individuals with disabilities. Additionally, please do not include links to advertisements or endorsements; we will delete all such links before your comment is posted.
Again, thank you for your interest in this opportunity to support civic learning. We look forward to hearing from you.
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A PRACTICAL course on Civic Duties and Engagement should be mandatory in high school curriculum. U.S. high school students should be taught HOW to vote responsibly (eg. courses should teach and PRACTICE researching issues, positions, motivations, etc.), HOW to file taxes, ways to ACTIVELY participate in community problem-solving.
I agree with some of the previous comments; the best education is well-rounded, and not just in an academic sense of how much a student learns from sitting in a classroom. More civic engagement should be encouraged, maybe even required. For example, at my university, there is a general education course about American history and government and part of the course is a 10-hour service project over the course of a semester. As a result of working with other community members via local organizations, the student is better able to see how his/her role as a citizen on a local community level while also learning about the structure of local, state, and national governments and organizations. Rather than what he/she learns being applicable in an abstract, theoretical way, the learning becomes personal and tangible, making the learning experience much more memorable and long-lasting.
Also, I believe that there should be more of an intercultural emphasis. I study foreign languages and cultures and since I have studied them and had the opportunity to spend a few months abroad, I feel like I am better educated that I ever was before because I have been exposed to other countries’ customs. Consequently, I am a better position to share my knowledge with others. Furthermore, while also being more appreciative of others’ traditions, I am also more dedicated to my own and I have a more balanced view of others.
In other words, I think it would highly benefit our youth if they were given more hands-on experience in the community and if they were provided opportunities to connect and observe other cultures. Most importantly, which I haven’t mentioned yet, parents should be given more opportunities and encouraged more to participate in their children’s education, because children with parental support are more likely to make educational gains, both as students and as individuals.
No high school student should graduate without undergoing a deep, serious, effort to understand the debates and compromises forged at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It is the responsibility of teachers of history to introduce students to the larger problems that define the country’s political system—like, the challenges that people have faced in attaining recognition of basic civil rights the whole host of debates from the beginning of the Republic over the role of the Federal government in public life. Personally, I think learning outcomes tied to these issues ought to be based on reading. I cannot understand why every high school in the country is not expected to read, analyze, and inwardly digest the issues behind Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of An American Slave, and a host of selected readings from Presidential addresses and writers who best help people to understand a debate and the arguments people forge.
I am utterly convinced that there are two forces that have absolutely destroyed American education: 1) the extreme left-wing multiculturalists who assert that no one can read Emily Dickenson because she might not have been a lesbian and that students cannot read a presidential address because we haven’t had one who is an Eskimo; and 2) the far-right wing nuts who assume that all skills and learning can be measured on a multiple choice standardized test. If “civic engagement” is limited to bubbling in answers to a standardized test , students are left not with engagement but boredom—which is the enemy of real education.
At the post-secondary level, collaborative endeavors with the Association of American Colleges and Universities would enhance the impact and cost-effectiveness of initiatives, as the AACU has already conducted much work in this area: http://www.aacu.org/press_room/press_releases/2009/civicresponsibility.cfm
I would like to call special attention to the essential learning outcomes identified by the AACU, which include “intercultural knowledge and competence” and civic knowledge and engagement at local, national, and global levels. As stated in their report _Civic Responsibility: What Is the Campus Climate for Learning?_: “The United States—as a democracy that is diverse, globally engaged, and dependent on citizen
responsibility—requires college graduates to have an informed concern for the larger good and the ability to understand and navigate morally complex issues in a dynamic and often volatile world.”
Dear Dean,
The Department of Education (ED) has limited authority to intervene in individual cases. Specifically, ED is restricted by statute from exercising “any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school or schools system …” (20 U.S.C. 1232a). I encourage you to continue to work with your school, district and state to achieve a successful resolution of this matter.
Best,
Sam
To the Department of Education, dated October 8, 2012,
This in regards to a situation in Philadelphia, Penn., at the high school Charles Carroll
High School Oct. 3, 2012, were a student was harrassed by a public school teacher by humilating this student because she wore a Romney T-shirt. This comes right down to BULLING, something that this department of education says is a NO, NO.
I would like to know why you have a commercial on public radio talking about BULLING and its the parents responsibility to teach their children not to BULLY?
The department of education seems to have a double standard like most government run institutions seem to exhibit. I would like to know as a taxpayer what are you going to do to this teacher who is a BULLIER?
In order to insure that these learning objectives are furthered it is esential that educators make civic engagement part of their syllabus and classroom activities. An easy way to do this is through project based learning where the activity becomes part of a larger question that students must answer; inclusive in the project is service learning or civic engagement.