Description
Book SynopsisAmerican political culture runs through civics classrooms, and the degraded dialogue and scorched-earth partisanship that has defined modern American politics is an indicator that all is not well in our nation's schools. Teaching Civics in Unstable Times: Guidelines for Defining We in American Democracy offers a fresh, expansive view of what civic education can look like in K-12 classrooms, and presents three strategies to help teachers, curriculum writers, and administrators turn their schools into laboratories for democracy that train young people for the moral and intellectual challenges of democratic citizenship.
This book defines democracy as a way of life that is characterized by frequent public engagement, stubborn open-mindedness, and rigorous debate. Our democratic government depends on our citizens leading a democratic life, and civic education's chief priority is to teach young people how to do so. Civic curriculum has spent decades obsessing over names and dates th
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Section I. New Instructional Strategies for Government, Economics, and US History
Chapter 1. Rule #1: Teach Debate as a Core American Value
Chapter 2. Rule #2: Teach Renewal as a Core American Value
Chapter 3. Rule #3 Teach Democracy as a Way of Life
Section II. Democratic Habits
Chapter 4. Democratic Habit #1: All Citizenship is Local
Chapter 5. Democratic Habit #2: Facilitating Productive Disagreements
Chapter 6. Democratic Habit #3: A Middle Path Between Polarization and Indifference
Section III. Democratizing School Structures
Chapter 7. Practicing Citizenship Strategy #1: Participatory Budgeting
Chapter 8. Practicing Citizenship Strategy #2: Restorative Justice
Chapter 9. Practicing Citizenship Strategy #3: Student Governments that Build School-Wide Civic Culture
Chapter 10. Practicing Citizenship Strategy #4: Student Referenda and Direct Proposals to Faculty and Administration
Chapter 11. Practicing Citizenship Strategy #5: In-School Service Hours
Conclusion
References
About the Author
