Harry R. Lewis, in this week’s Chronicle Review, explores what he considers to be the most important part of any core curriculum in the coming decades: civic education. An excerpt:
It is true that students are less homogeneous than they used to be in ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic background. But, in all their diversity, they are the same in at least one important way: They all will be citizens. Most will be U.S. citizens. They will be voters and the political candidates for whom we vote. Moreover, foreign students inevitably learn something about our republic — from The Colbert Report, if not the classroom. Whether they return home or remain in this country, it is in our interest that what they learn be accurate.