Civics Education — The Safe Kind and the Subversive Kind

By Alfie Kohn

[This is an expanded version of the published article, which was titled “How Should We Make Sure Our Kids Learn to Be Good Citizens?”]

Some years ago, a group of teachers from Florida traveled to what was then the U.S.S.R. to exchange information and ideas with their Russian-speaking counterparts. What the Soviet teachers most wanted from their guests was guidance on setting up and running democratic schools. Their questions on this topic were based on the assumption that a country like the United States, where the idea of democracy is constantly invoked, surely must involve children in meaningful decision-making from their earliest years.

That story about the Soviet teachers came to mind recently when I read that a federal lawsuit was filed charging the state of Rhode Island with failing to provide students “a meaningful opportunity to obtain an education adequate to prepare them to be capable citizens.” The obvious question: What exactly does that last phrase mean?

What it should mean – and what ought to define a democratic society’s approach to education – has more to do with asking inconvenient questions, organizing for collective action, insisting that people be able to participate in making decisions about matters that affect them, and confronting the systemic roots of problems (rather than reflexively blaming individuals for their troubles).

critical, questioning sensibility.

Not surprisingly, current mandates for teaching civics lend themselves to just this pedagogical approach. Extending it to more states (as the Rhode Island lawsuit demands), or intensifying existing requirements, is unlikely to have any meaningful impact on the kinds of citizens that students become.

their own questions. That means the course of study for a given age level won’t be the same in two adjacent classrooms, just as it will vary from one year to the next. Top-down, one-size-fits-all education standards make it much harder to engage in such exemplary instruction.

We’re left to wonder: Would most politicians and corporate executives who decry civic ignorance in the young really want a populace of committed democratic activists?

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