Pandemic taught us that we need better civics education
Few manifestations of the human condition are as perplexing as finding bags of dog poop left along a trail or sidewalk. They’re always neatly tied up, like a little gift waiting to be opened.
Somebody took the time to stoop, scoop and put it in the little baggie, only to not bother finding a garbage can. “They pick it up on the way back” is an excuse I’ve often heard made for these people, but the number of filled bags out there suggests people aren’t walking in circles much.
As a dog parent who has often carried such bags for kilometres until a proper bin can be found, I don’t get it. Is it a misplaced protest about not enough garbage cans? Somewhere along the way the notion of civic duty and social responsibility broke down. There are far more serious examples, with more dire consequences, but the low-key carelessness here makes it profoundly depressing. Why? An answer might be civics itself. In the increasingly distant past, a robust civics curriculum was part of a public school education. Students were taught how society and government works and trained to be citizens. Not trained in official national citizenship like swearing an oath to Queen and country, but in civic literacy and the spirit of John F. Kennedy’s aphorism from his inaugural address, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
Today, high school students in Ontario get a bare minimum of mandatory civics. During elections at the municipal level, candidates will tell you they’ve often had to explain what a city councillor or even city government does when meeting people at their door. Throw in three levels of government with overlapping jurisdictions and the confusion is enough to make it all seem more complicated than it is, causing people to tune out. That’s not good for anyone.
We’re seeing some of the consequences of a lack of civic literacy as we’ve entered the confusion phase of the pandemic. Remember at the beginning when all levels of government were largely operating in sync, across party and ideological lines, with a unified public health message mostly free from politics? It’s amazing what being scared to the core can do, but that’s all over now.
The age-old petty sniping and turf war between province and city has flared up, resulting in very mixed messages at the worst possible time as the second wave of COVID-19 hits Ontario hard.
The lack of cohesive message has allowed a good amount of people to find loopholes in the messaging to justify risky behaviour: if I can still eat at a restaurant indoors in the same room as strangers, why can’t I have extended family over for Thanksgiving? Others still aren’t paying attention to the messages at all. They’ve tuned out.
A strong civics education, started early and continued through the end of high school, would mean far fewer people would tune out. Knowing how the system works also prevents cynicism from setting in.
Let’s say, for fun, those doggie gift bags are actually protests. Instead of throwing it on the ground, the delinquent owner would know what needs to be done to get more garbage cans installed.
A call for better civics also doesn’t mean a return to some nostalgic past where men wore hats to baseball games and people obeyed the government without question.
Rather, as with our current situation, civic literacy equips people to better think for themselves and know when politics is being played, so when failed by government, as we are now, we can chart a responsible path though the mixed messages rather than find loopholes.
The demise of a robust civics curriculum has sometimes been spoken of in conspiratorial tones. “They don’t want people to know how it works,” and the like.
The thing is, civics isn’t left or right, nor is it anti- or progovernment. It’s simply knowing how things work, a roadmap of each of our connections to government and each other.
It’s also good for the economy in the long run. People doing the wrong things that result in higher COVID cases are ultimately going to bring about a bigger second lockdown than anybody wants.
Seeing the number of new cases rise dramatically is scary, but what I cling to is the social trust I also see. Even with the exceptions, mask use is still remarkably widespread when in indoor, public spaces, and a recent poll found most Ontarians favour small Thanksgiving gatherings and were opposed to the usual Halloween festivities.
It suggests all is not lost, there’s a foundation to build on and that those poop bags can all make it to the garbage bin eventually.
Re-establishing a proper civics education in public schools is yet another thing that should be fixed, postpandemic.