by Matt Doran

Recent developments have raised questions about what kind of civic education we should have in the United States. Critics of the College Board's new AP US History Framework claimed the framework emphasized negative aspects of American History, and short-changed ideals like American exceptionalism.  Others have decried the poor results on the NAEP Civics Test as a clear sign of civic illiteracy. On the other side, many educators viewed the events of Ferguson and the Black Lives Matter movement as opportunities to promote civic activism.

Should American History and civics classes emphasize civic activism or civic literacy? Most curricula and classrooms will include some of both, and the two emphases are not mutually exclusive. However, the model below helps us understand these two approaches, and evaluate which way the pendulum may be swinging at the national, state, local, and classroom level.  

​Consider the headlines below.  What approach to civic education is emphasized? 

by Matt Doran

Over the past several weeks, I have been crafting new assessment items around skills standards--credibility of sources, bias, stereotypes, claims, supporting evidence, etc. It strikes me that in the Internet and social media era, we need to update our thinking skills to address Internet legends, viral videos, and social media memes.

How do we wade through the multitude of spurious quotes, stories, and claims?
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1. Fact Check - Snopes.com or Factcheck.org are two good places to start. Of course, one should also fact check the fact checkers.
   
   
2. Corroborate - Compare multiple sources of information. Check the credentials of the writers. Who funds the site? What agenda is served by the claims? Who benefits from this "evidence"?
   
   
3. Contextualize - Based on social media memes, I would get the impression that the founding fathers lived in a vacuum, writing one liners and pithy quotes. They didn't. They wrote letters, speeches, and government documents. They addressed specific audiences for a defined purpose in a historical context. Read quotes in the original document. Use the immediate context to understand the connotation of words and phrases. Draw from the larger historical picture to find out what circumstances prompted the source. Historical thinking is hard work. The answers aren't always googleable. It requires us to immerse ourselves in a time and place much different than our own.
   
   
4. Avoid Eisegesis and Proof-texting - Clear thinking requires us to shed our presuppositions and allow the authors of texts to speak on their own terms. If we go to sources seeking to affirm our political positions, we will inevitability do so. It's a function of cognitive psychology known as confirmation bias, a tendency to interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.
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5. Appreciate nuance and shades of gray - Sweeping generalizations are easy to make. Digging deeper, we can see exceptions to general rules and significant differences between seemingly similar situations.

​Remember the words of Lincoln...