Time for a high school civics course?

It seems fitting in the year that Nova Scotia prides itself on being the first Canadian jurisdiction to realize representative democracy, celebrating the 250th year of our legislature, that we assess the knowledge base from which our citizenship is exercised. One way of doing so is to reconsider the merits of a mandatory course in civics education for high school students.

When I arrived to the Valley I was told that teaching politics here was like missionary work: students knew surprisingly little about life outside the province and they had an underdeveloped sense of their citizenship, believing that voting exactly the same way that their family had voted for generations would pretty much do it.

Social science teachers have made a real difference in the past 25 years, from deepening students’ sense of our historical and intellectual roots in antiquity to preparing them to be much more alert to the global world in which they live.

Still, we tend to do more Nova Scotian and Canadian history, attend more to the cultural traditions that animate our history, and do more even in entrepreneurial training than we do to prepare students for their roles as citizens.

Students from Ontario and Alberta simply know more about Canadian politics and governments than students from Nova Scotia. We have agreed wisely here to require fine arts credits in our high schools, just as we have increased the number of school hours for physical fitness, preparing students to be physically active for their whole lives—a lesson seemingly lost on yours truly.

But are we doing enough to ensure that young Nova Scotians are prepared to be active, effective citizens throughout their lives?

The fact that some of the money currently being spent by the Democracy 250 crew is earmarked for pleading with young people to become more active is an indication, I think, that we may not be doing enough. Is it time to develop a mandatory course for students in their last year of high school, one that offers enough of an understanding of how our democratic institutions work to make their participation effective, and enough of a sense of what it means to be a democratic citizen to restore and develop the core of a well functioning democracy, a civic culture?

Of two minds on the issue

I’m of two minds on this question. This is probably a good thing, as usually I am of many minds, these changing daily, providing further evidence, as they say, that education takes one’s confusion to higher level.

Despite the often valiant efforts of law and other social studies teachers and the keenness of some of their students, most students don’t know as much about our system of government and politics as they should. And there is evidence that our civic culture is in decline, that associative life generally, as well as community engagement, is not as well sustained and developed as it needs to be if our democracy is to flourish.

That it is not in Nova Scotia is especially a concern, since we have the reputation of rich associative traditions in political parties, community and interest groups of a variety of sorts, and as we have a taste for New England town hall democracy. Even where we see a high level of citizen participation, it’s not clear that all of us are working from a common set of understandings about how democracy works. A mandatory course in civics education could address these sorts of concerns.

Notwithstanding, a mandatory civics course may have two strikes against it from the get-go. Making a civics course mandatory, especially if taught poorly or grounded in inadequate pedagogy, might well have the effect of dulling the interest in citizenship of those compelled to complete it. Moreover, such a course could become a soapbox for teachers wishing to advance their own ideological or party commitments, that in introducing politics to young people we would seek too narrowly to politicize them.

Still, there may be a set of educational goals that would militate against such concerns, and with readers’ indulgence I will seek to advance some ideas on this front in a subsequent column.