Each generation must take up the American political tradition and pass it along to the generation that follows.
Each generation must take up the American political tradition and pass it along to the generation that follows.
T he week of March 6 is Civic Learning Week, spearheaded by the civic-education network iCivics and marked by a gathering of civics educators and organizations in Washington, D.C. Not only is civics education a worthy cause — it is a critical one. Our nation depends on thoughtful and active citizenship for its very existence.
In a time when so much of our public discourse focuses on what divides us, it is worth remembering that we are all a part of the American political tradition. Left, right, and center — we would all do well to reflect on the tradition that makes us shareholders in a great, diverse, and idealistic nation, and why we should each do our part to keep this tradition alive through civic education. As a self-governing people, we must promulgate and reinforce the central ideas of America at every level of education and in every community.
Yet we have neglected civic education for a generation or more.
First, the progressive movement of the early 20th century challenged traditional American concepts of self-government. Instead, progressives celebrated the administrative state as a solution to the increasing complexity of society’s problems. Rather than solving problems through representative democracy, progressive leaders delegated problems to bureaucracies, and so there arose a professional expert class of civil servants. The knowledge of governing increasingly became a matter for specialized expertise.
Second, in the wake of these progressive innovations, schools lumped much of what was once known as civics and history under the heading of “social studies.” In the classroom, current events and issues often became more important than a deep understanding of our institutions, history, and national creed.
And third, in our haste to make students economically competent, we often overlooked the need for competence in the work of citizenship. In recent years, science, technology, engineering, and math have crowded out other subjects, including civics and history.
The results of our neglect of civics are sadly evident. We are losing trust in our institutions, and public discourse is downright nasty. We have nearly lost the ability to disagree respectfully. We know far too little about the basics of how to govern at a time when we need far more people who are willing to step up and get involved. And we risk losing a common reference point about where we are going as a country, about who we are as a people.
Fortunately, not all is lost, and the American tradition is broad. From Thomas Paine to John Adams, Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King Jr., Americans have been debating ideas such as freedom and virtue, order and liberty for more than 250 years. In the midst of all the tumult and disagreement, though, we can identify four main principles that are essential to the American political tradition.
First, human equality. This is the central principle of the Declaration of Independence by which we asserted our sovereignty as a nation. We hold that people have dignity because they are “created equal.” All are equally entitled to life, liberty, and opportunity, and to take part in their own governance.
Second, freedom. Americans prize their freedom — the freedom of individuals and families to seek their own destiny, to create and explore, to try new things, and sometimes to fail. We believe Americans should be free to learn and grow, to improve and reform, to serve and to give, and to leave a legacy. The Preamble to the Constitution speaks of the “blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Liberty is both a source of blessings and an inheritance worth passing along to future generations.
Third, constitutionalism. Free people ought to govern themselves. Constitutionalism means a fidelity to a covenant of freedom. The Constitution is a shared framework for self-government that shapes our daily lives. Its Preamble lays out our common commitments. The rest of the document provides structure to our institutions.
Within the constitutional tradition is room for debate over policy and all other kinds of matters — but the tradition of deliberation itself stands out and elevates respect for people and for institutions. A crucial question of the founding, according to Alexander Hamilton writing in the beginning of The Federalist Papers, is “whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.” America took the path of “reflection and choice.” So long as we affirm certain core principles, there is room for difference, for pluralism, for different solutions to complex problems, for partisanship and for local variation.
Finally, civic responsibility. Ultimately, the survival of a constitutional system of self-government depends on the willingness of citizens to defend it. Each generation has a sacred obligation to understand the core ideas, documents, and history of America, to act on that knowledge in our daily lives as citizens, and to pass it along to the next generation. The Founders believed that every citizen has a role to play in civic education.
In a free society, civic education takes many forms. Classroom learning at the K–12 level is essential but woefully inadequate; we must take steps in our school boards and state legislatures to correct this oversight by requiring high-school graduates to demonstrate an understanding of the nation’s founding documents and by creating incentives for teachers to seek professional development in the core texts and ideas of America.
But civic education is a society-wide endeavor. We cannot limit our emphasis on civics to K–12 classrooms. Colleges and universities should heed the recent call of Johns Hopkins University president Ronald Daniels, in his book What Universities Owe Democracy, to offer a serious civic education to their students. And citizens of all ages and backgrounds should consider it a responsibility to study the nation’s foundational documents, ideas, and history — and to pass this understanding along to their children and grandchildren.
When I served in the Washington State house, I met many Washingtonians who understood their vocation as citizens. For example, I once visited a carpenters’-union hall and met a man who told me he wanted to help educate his union brothers and sisters about the U.S. Constitution. That man’s zeal for America’s founding principles is admirable. Civic literacy is in serious decline, and the only way to reverse it is to talk about these things among friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors.
We also learn about how to govern ourselves through active participation. In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville argues that citizens learn self-government by taking part in it in families, neighborhoods, and local institutions. “In this manner they familiarize themselves little by little with association,” Tocqueville wrote. “The more the number of these small common affairs increases, the more do men, even without their knowing it, acquire the ability to pursue great ones in common.”
The habits of freedom and personal responsibility dispose people toward civil society, and civil society disposes people toward political life. By living in a political society founded on equality, Americans grow accustomed to working with each other toward common ends. As they do this, they are prepared to take part in the formal institutions of government.
We learn the practical arts of civic engagement by taking part in community activities, often through institutions such as neighborhood associations, service clubs, nonprofit membership groups, and houses of worship that make us accustomed to serving others. We learn about the civic culture of America through visual arts, literature, museums, national parks, and performing arts such as the musical Hamilton. And we learn about the power of citizen participation by taking part in local-government commissions or boards, by joining professional or interest-group organizations that work to advance an agenda in Congress or state legislatures, or by volunteering on political campaigns. In a representative democracy such as ours, these kinds of activities are helpful preparation for seeking and holding public office.
Each generation must take up the American political tradition and pass it along to the generation that follows. This is not a partisan responsibility or one that rests with one class or demographic — it is one that belongs to all of us.