Hart, Jo-Anna (2008, August). Why growing voters matters: The need for engaging civics. Learning and leading with technology, Retrieved
Political participation, ignorance, and apathy are par for the course in American society and the educational system has done nothing to rectify this situation. Jo-Anna Hart’s article addresses the need in schools to have more civic education and engagement and one way she has promoted this is to develop a website with projects, exercises, and vetted websites. She sees the need for “constructivist understanding” where students produce voting materials and engage amongst one another, students in other grades, and the general public. She has a series of questions relating to the voting process that the process of answering requires a “higher-order of thinking.”
Question 1- Why doesn’t the education system foster more knowledge and engagement in civic affairs? In my opinion the overriding philosophy behind public education has been to produce productive member of society as it is. Being that its purpose is to support the structure as is, fostering knowledge and engagement of the society as a whole may undermine our system of representative government (republic) where those in control come from a very small percentage of the upper echelon. One aspect of this has been the implementation of NCLB where standardized tests on math and English skills have prioritized any sort of authentic engagement with the real world out of the curriculum.
Question 2- Can a different approach to education effect voter turnout? If education becomes more geared towards Heart’s ideas of “constructivist” and “higher-order” thinking then at a minimum people will be more involved. Starting from the beginning of a student’s education there should be an emphasis on these sorts of approaches as opposed to the usual regurgitation of the idealized points of history and founding fathers. The grey, messy, and imperfect political situation of this country is enough to interest students without the obvious generalities and unbelievable venire that is usually given in school.
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