Betcha you couldn't pass it!

 Betcha you couldn’t pass it

 

Immigrants need to pass a test in order to become citizens.   Native born Americans just need to be born in the States.  They still get to vote.   

Our schools have worried that we are not giving kids a rigorous education so all students  are taking algebra II, but not civics.   Doesn’t take a genius to figure out which content will be more useful!   

Events of the last few weeks have shown how little the average citizen knows about civics and how the government works, yet they get to protest, to vote and to spread information that is clearly false.

It is probably too late to fix adults.   I am not arguing for a return of tests for voters because we all know how that turned out as the tests were used to disenfranchise minority groups.  And those efforts continue to be in play in some states.

But, we are short changing our students if we do not teach them how a democracy functions.  As Winston Churchill said, “democracy is the worst form or government except for all other forms that have been tried from time to time”.   He was correct.

We live in a democracy and our young people need to understand that democracy is messy.  That is the downside. An authoritarian dictatorship is ever so more efficient. The dictator speaks and the people hear and obey.   Without knowing how a democracy functions our children will never learn why we tolerate the downside to get to the upside that is so much more relevant to our lives.   Unfortunately, it would be great if adults were required to get some sort of instruction as well, but I am not that much of a Pollyanna  to expect anything to come of that.

We can help the next generation.   Currently some states (including Maryland) require a course in government and an exit exam for the course.  That course itself is barely relevant because it asks students to memorize things that are not functional to their daily lives.  Why not make native born students pass the citizenship test in order to graduate high school?   Immigrant students in our high schools could wind up being their coaches.

What students need is a course in civics.  They need to know the functions of each branch of government, what each branch can do and what it cannot do.  They need to learn that rights have connected responsibilities and that when advocating for their rights they must engage in those responsibilities.  Kids need to know what the Constitution says citizens are guaranteed and what it does not guarantee.  Students need to be taught that the U.S. is a nation of laws- not men or women!  They need to learn that the Constitution is the bedrock of those laws.

One of the things we learned about getting people to stop smoking is that the dangers of smoking taught in school were often delivered to families by the kids.  Maybe if we required and tested for civics education children could educate adults, who I bet couldn’t pass the citizenship test!