Fifth Ten Postings of Gravitas

  The following list of titles and accompanying dates refers to past postings on the blog, Gravitas: A Voice for Civics Education, that have been deleted.  After each title and date, the entries below include the first paragraph of each respective posting.  If you care to receive a copy of a particular posting, send your request via email to gravitascivics@gmail.com .  One posting per request.

DETERMINISTIC POLITICS?

(January 24, 2011)

For those of you who might not be familiar with the term, determinism is the idea that we do not really have control over our actions – that we are deceived into believing we do because we are conscious of going through some mental “decision-making” process before we act. Of course, the exception to this process is when we react to an unexpected change in our immediate environment. This would be the case, for example, if you suddenly looked up and saw a ball headed for your noggin and you duck. I'm always curious that while watching a baseball game, from time to time, a foul lined ball will shoot directly backward. The people sitting behind the plate duck when that happens even though they know a fence is there to protect them. Obviously there is no decision-making; there is just reaction.

A FLOATING ORGANISM

(January 28, 2011)

To date, in this blog, I have shared with you the basic tenets of a construct that I believe provides primary guidance over what is mostly taught in our civics classrooms around the country. I call the construct natural rights. I have identified its main moral positions as those associated with traditional liberalism. Specifically, it holds that liberty is a trump value; that the individual has the right to define his or her own views and ambitions and, short of interfering with others' right to do likewise, to behave in accordance with those views and ambitions. According to this construct, no other right or value is more important in the public sphere than liberty. The construct also contains a view of politics and governance. This view mostly relies on the political systems model which had prominence within the scholarly discipline of political science during the middle of the last century. For the most part, researchers who ascribe to this position rely on scientific protocols to do their work. As outlined below, the more progressive educators of our school systems – a relatively small number of teachers – incorporate these methods in their instructional plans and introduce secondary students to the research techniques associated with the political systems model.

A NATURAL RIGHTS DIRECTION IN OUR CURRICULUM

(January 31, 2011)

Over the last few postings, I have been reviewing the elements of the natural rights construct. This construct serves as the main view of politics and governance among our citizens and guides civics instructional efforts in US classrooms. In order to present these elements, I have used the following questions to guide me: What should the basis of civic morality be? And what is the nature of politics and government? A review of the last handful of postings will reveal answers to these questions from the perspective of the natural rights construct. In this posting, I want to begin answering a third question: What should the elements of civics curriculum be? Included in this question is the concern over what the civic role of schools should be. Since it is impossible to totally segregate these topics – moral outlook, perspective of politics and governance, and elements of civics curriculum – I have already given hints as to what the answer of this last question is. I want to now begin targeting this curricular issue more directly.

NATURAL RIGHTS CURRICULUM AND ASSESSMENT

(February 4, 2011)

I have characterized the natural rights construct, our dominate view of politics and governance, as a highly objectified perspective. Given that this construct is the central theoretical foundation for what is taught in American civics and government classes, it has a profound impact on what our young people are exposed to in terms of content and values. This influence is felt in a variety of ways. Influences range from the content found in most textbooks to national attempts at assessing how well schools perform in this subject area. The federal government has a hand in this latter effort. It funds the Center for Civic Education and, through the Center, the Educational Testing Service. Jointly, they produce the National Assessment Educational Progress (NAEP) testing program known as the Nation's Report Card, which includes testing in civics.

THE AIMS OF A NATURAL RIGHTS CURRICULUM

(February 7, 2011)

These last few postings have addressed the question: what should the civics curriculum (including the civic role of schools) be? The overall trend in our schools, where the natural rights construct has been the predominant mental construct guiding those schools' efforts in civics, has been to promote a consumer orientation to citizenship. I detect in the literature, produced and promoted by natural rights educators, the following goals:

• teach the structural components of government (the parts of the government like the Presidency)
• teach a view of government as a subservient institution which attempts to satisfy the collective interests of individual citizens
• teach the philosophical basis of government’s role as defender of individual rights
• convey the legitimate needs of government to encourage and facilitate degrees of support among the populous in order to maintain political stress to manageable and even useful levels
• portray a realistic account of politics within the nation so that students will be able to reasonably interact with governmental agencies and offices to pursue their political goals and objectives
• express the technical nature of political activity with ample respect for political expertise held by professionals which includes elected officials and bureaucrats

CAN NATURAL RIGHTS BE NEUTRAL AND COMMUNAL?

(February 11, 2011)

There has been criticism concerning the level of individualism characterizing our civics curriculum. I have attributed, through these postings, some “blame” for this individualism on a particular view of politics and government, the natural rights construct. Ironically, a scholar who has recognized the communal role that civics should hold and promote is John Patrick. I write ironically because he has had both enormous influence on the work of the Center for Civic Education and in the Center's role assisting in the National Assessment Educational Progress (NAEP) testing program known as the Nation's Report Card and which reflects the assumptions of the natural rights construct. In addition, Patrick has co-authored a widely used civics textbook based on a natural rights perspective.

NEUTRALITY DEFINED

(February 14, 2011)

In the last few postings, I have written about the neutrality of the political system. This language might be confusing. You might ask, don't elected officials go to their legislative and executive positions with platforms that promote a certain set of policy positions that, once they are elected, they try to implement? Does this not reflect a bias, a position? Isn't neutrality the opposite when someone or some group avoids taking a positions?

W-X-Y-Z

(February 18, 2011)

The title of this posting does not refer to a radio or TV station (I think there exists both a radio and TV station with those call letters). My reference to W-X-Y-Z is a shorthand way to designate different types of politicians. The letters result from formulating a two by two grid in which, along the horizontal plane, we gauge a politician's motivation and, along the vertical plane, we gauge his or her overall strategy. The grid forms four cells, hence W-X-Y-Z.

HIS WAY WAS THE HIGHWAY

(February 21, 2011)

When I was young, growing up in Miami, Florida, I remember the exciting prospect of an expressway being built through the eastern part of the city. Interstate 95 was constructed and it promised to revolutionize our ability to travel north and south. What I wasn't aware of at the time was the human cost that “improvement” meant in the lives of thousands of people. Later in life, especially during the racial disturbances of the eighties, I learned how I-95 disrupted African-American neighborhoods like Overtown.

THE ABSENCE OF A BALANCING ACT

(February 25, 2011)

In this blog, I have been reviewing what I term the natural rights construct. I have outlined this perspective's moral and theoretical foundations and reviewed its methodological approach. Next, I want to critique this construct. I have, through these postings, previewed what I find lacking with the construct, but starting with this posting, I will more directly express my judgments on its the utility.