Civic Sputnik moment for education is upon us
If there is any silver lining to the current crisis, it is the renewal of active attention to the health of our democracy, particularly among young people.
These are challenging days for our democracy. Bitter partisanship, outrageous claims and differing views of what constitutes truth have resulted in a deeply polarized citizenry. The sense of a nation united by shared beliefs seems shattered by division and rancor. The partisan divisiveness has hindered our ability to address and resolve complex public-policy issues facing our country.
If there is any silver lining to the current crisis, it is the renewal of active attention to the health of our democracy, particularly among young people. As one of my friends suggested, this could be “a civic Sputnik moment,” calling on the country to focus attention on the reality that our democracy is not a spectator sport. It requires the thoughtful involvement of its participants. One critical path to overcoming polarization and fostering a healthy democracy is to do a better job of preparing college and university students to be knowledgeable and involved citizens.
As Thomas Jefferson made clear, the key to an effective democracy is an educated citizenry. “If we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control, with a wholesome discretion,” he wrote, “the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.”
While college students are showing increasing interest in civic life, universities must do much more to encourage this interest and also to guide students to more effective and productive discourse, rather than the ugly rancor we have seen increasing on college campuses this year.
The American Democracy Project (ADP), sponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, is a non-partisan, multicampus network focused on preparing the next generation of informed, engaged citizens. I was one of its founders, 14 years ago. It now includes 256 campuses across the country, educating some 2.1 million students, including those in the Cal State System, such as San Jose State.
ADP has begun to collaborate on national projects with a partner organization of community colleges, The Democracy Commitment (TDC), cofounded by DeAnza College president Brian Murphy. One of the early successes is the creation of an “ideological diagnostic” to help students understand that a left-right, liberal-conservative bifurcation is almost certainly untrue for them personally, and that the students in any class will represent a range of political perspectives. It was designed by Patrick Dolenc and Kimberly Schmidl-Gagne at Keene State College in New Hampshire, and is based on the work of Barry Clark, now at the University of Colorado.
Another example is the work of Mike Caulfield at Washington State University, Vancouver, collaborating with my Stanford colleague, Sam Wineburg, to promote media civic literacy for college students. We know that students gain most of their information on public-policy issues from social media, but very few have any idea how to judge the sources of that information or the background of its authors, which is essential knowledge to gauge accuracy. Mike has written a free online book that gives step-by step guidance for students to check facts and differentiate the fake from the real.
These efforts are promising, but not nearly enough. We need to strengthen and widen the effort to include many more campuses and millions more students, with a focus on education that promotes knowledgeable political engagement. University leaders and their advisory boards must step up to this responsibility.
Our Sputnik moment for civic education has arrived. No student should be awarded a degree from an institution of higher learning in this country without the knowledge and skills to be engaged citizens in a thriving democracy.