Transcripts For CSPAN2 Chester Finn And Michael Petrilli How To Educate An American 20240712

For other great events like this. Now on cspan2 booktv, more television for serious readers. Good morning ladies and gentlemen. My name is ian rowe, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise institute and the Thomas P Ford institute. Most importantly, for todays discussion i am the ceo of public prep, a network of public charter elementary and middle school located in the heart of the south bronx and Lower East Side of manhattan. Its my honor to welcome you to what i believe will be a very provocative discussion on compelling new book how to educate an american the conservative vision for tomorrows schools, published by templeton press. Moore joined today by a fantastic group of panelists beginning with Michael Petrilli and chester finn respectively the president and president emeritus of fordham institute. How to educate an american was the brainchild of mike and chester finn and they will share the original inspiration behind the book and why it seems even more important now to revitalize k12 Civic Education. Joining us today as respondents are david bob, president of the bill of Rights Institute, david has worked 20 years to build strong Civic Education rights a apreviously at Hillsdale College and author of the book on the vital role of humility and politics. Welcome david. Also joining us is jonah goldberg, the asmus chair and applied liberty at the American Enterprise institute and the editor and chief of dispatch and let me, jonah actually has authored a chapter in how to educate an american. And finally, sarah sarah morgan smith, director of faculty at the Ashbrook Center which seeks to restore and strengthen the capacities of the American People for constitutional selfgovernment. Thank you all for joining. Two quick housekeeping notes, we will be doing a q a so please submit questions in one of two ways. Either you can email nicole. Penn aei. Org or submit questions to the hashtag educated americans aei. These will be posted on the aei and fordham websites and im pleased to share that cspan booktv website will also air the discussion. Its abto say the world has changed quite changed since they first conceived how to educate an american. They wanted to gather a group of scholars to provide a compendium of ideas that would reinvigorate conservative thought and education and ensure young people with value the nations history understands its system of government and shared cherish its founding ideas but then what i describe was two earthquakes and the trauma occurred. The first earthquake is of course the covid19 pandemic. As someone who runs a network in its third month of Distance Learning for 2000 students and now doing massive amounts of scenario planning for what school would look like in the fall the one thing that is certain is that instructional delivery and k12 education is gonna look radically different. What is less discussed is more and then anecdotal evidence suggesting that children who enter the pandemic embedded in strong typically married families were much more likely to be protected from financial and emotional stress. How will that fact change the urgency of what we teach young people about the importance of building Strong Families and a Strong Civil Society in a post covid world . The second earthquake as i describe it is the New York Times 16a9 project. If youre not familiar with 16a9 its the New York Times attempt to place slavery at the very center of our National Narrative in the year 1619 as the extreme founding of america and not be your 1776. The revisionist history of 1619 has widely been discredited to historians on both the left and the right and its premises being challenged by a Group Scholars and activists led by bob woodson who swarmed the 1776 project. Despite this opposition, the 1619 project lead author won the pulitzer which will likely only accelerate distribution of the 1619 curriculum which is already in thousands of urban schools ensuring that primarily low income kids of color grow up with an understanding of American History that assess the countrys founding ideals false, when they were written and that antiblack racism runs in the very dna of this country. How do we focus on Civic Education when thats the growing movement in urban schools. New results nation report card which has been released revealing the percentage of eighth grade students who demonstrated proficiency in content knowledge and skills which is 24 percent in civic, 24 percent and geography and 15 percent in us history. In history only 10 of eighth graders can explain why the south lost the civil war. Unfortunately these numbers are nothing new as these rumblings had been repeated for years. But that framing of the challenges comes how to educate in america. The lead editor Michael Petrilli how has the relevance has how to educate america changed or even been enhanced . Thank you so much i appreciate that. Thank you, first of all for hosting and moderating and all the great work you and your colleagues are doing for the boys and girls and young men and young women near schools in new york city. And thank you to the American Enterprise institute for hosting this. It was supposed to be a live event once upon a time, covid also made that impossible but we appreciate forging ahead with this webinar and we understand there are many hundreds of you out there watching and we appreciate your time. Wed checker and i launch the project more than two years ago we did so from a place of frustration. Thats because the National Education Reform Movement that roared across america after a nation at risk felt like it had run out of steam. With effort still in some states and community they appear to ns backward almost as often is a version of the stagnation that ross writes about his new book the decadent society. We felt stuck there had been nontrivial successes standards and edge successes are higher almost and they used to be. Achievement has risen a bit at least in earlier grades mostly in math especially the lowest performers. Some learning gaps have narrowed and many opportunities are wider. Millions more families have options for their childrens education as its no longer take it for granted that students will attend their district operated Public Schools closest to their homes. Those are all things to celebrate. Many of these reforms driving ideas were conservative in origin although making them happen typically entailed bipartisanship and compromise. As democrats and republicans mostly centerleft and centerright crowd Common Ground and pursuit of big changes in a deeply entrenched Education System that would not successfully serving many of their children or society in which they live. As we all know bipartisanship is in tatters today as many realms of our national life. Thats a big problem on countless fronts. Yet as abwrites in his chapter in this book is also an opportunity for conservatives to recognize that the gains made possible through bipartisanship also meant suppressing important differences. And neglecting some vital elements in schooling in particular in education in general. It seemed like time to lean into these differences. The highlight whats been neglected, lost or distorted. An address some troubling educational voids and see if we could renegotiate terms before the next wave of bipartisan reform. That was the purpose of how to educate an american, the conservative vision for tomorrow schools. And it almost 2 dozen rightleaning public intellectuals and scholars responded to our request to help us address the Big Questions about where america finds itself at this moment in history where we are going or should go, and the role of primary secondary education in taking us there. As should be expected from this Incredible Group of creative thinkers, they all set off in many directions yet their separate musings turned out to revolve around a few key themes. One theme revolves around good character. That includes moral education, properly construed but also the critical work of helping young people find purpose and feel needed, the benefits of asking students to work hard in their studies and beyond and the injustice of dubious discipline reforms that reinforce the soft bigotry of low expectations around student behavior. The second big theme urged a broader view of what comes after elementary and secondary education. Many of the authors argue that college need not be the only pathway to dignity or the middle class and a key goal of our schools should be to inform teenagers about the success secrets and encourage them to follow it. As we know that sequence is to finish school, get a fulltime job, get married and start a family in that order. As ian im sure will say a little bit later, ian and his chapter writes a lot about the success secrets and these broader issues of Family Structure. Finally, the third theme and the one we will discuss today is the importance to rekindling students understanding of American History emma civics and citizenship. Including the kind that and stones informed love of country as it acknowledges past failing and present challenges. That was the focus of jonahs fantastic chapter about irradiating the past about which we will hear more in a moment. It was also the subject of elliott combs wonderful essay on patriotic history. The history that is both proamerican and also critical of the many ways our beloved nation has fallen short of its ideals. It was a theme as well by a chapter by Adam Meyerson and adam kissel of the philanthropy roundtable about how donors can promote an excellent engaging version of Civics Education without relying solely on public institutions. And it was a big part of the concluding chapter by former education secretary William J Bennett expressing his concern that more than three decades after don hirsch warned us about cultural illiteracy we still fail to teach our youngest students history and geography, science and the arts, all important in their own right but also essential if we are ever to win the war against illiteracy. What all these essays have in common in my view is a broad agreement around the problem, even if we remain somewhat flummoxed about how to respond. The problem simply put is that the academic left has embraced revisionist history of the needs to attack americas history and especially its founding as inherently unjust and even racist. This version of history jumped the shark from elite colleges and universities into our high schools, especially via textbooks like coward limbs or peoples history of the United States and more recently as ian noted, the 1619 project. This in turn has politicized our k12 history classes classrooms. Thats not to say history was taught perfectly in the past, way back when our schools were surely too eager to gloss over the countrys failures and too often did so with boring lectures to boot. But the challenge from then and the counterparts cannot be ignored. Those who lead and teach in our schools had to choose how to respond. I suspect much of our discussion today will focus on the question of the right response, some conservatives may dream of eradicating zen analects from our schools of returning to him unabashedly patriotic version of history focused on great men and wars won and perhaps that might actually happen to some extent in deep red america or in conservative private and Charter Schools. The version of the benedict option. But is that really the best solution . To accept that some American Kids will be taught red American History while others will learn blue American History . Is there a way to teach a red and blue even purple history . An understanding and appreciation of our past that in Elliott Cohens formulation is both patriotic and critical . Without avoiding the conflicts and controversies which would make history even more boring and and engaging for our teenagers. Thats the challenge the nations educators face and i hope that today we might give them some hope that it can be met. Thank you. Michael, thank you for that great introduction and framing. Now we are going to hear from david bob, president of the bill of Rights Institute. Thank you for joining us and please share your thoughts. Thank you very much ian, thank you mike for the excellent framing and for you and chester putting this outstanding volume of essays and flow reflections together. In 2016 the south korean government set in motion a plan in which a new book was unveiled. The correct textbook of history was its title. Mind you, that was south korea, not north korea. It was designed to remedy the perceived flaws of other textbooks. This resource had the and for moderate of the government. It was a regime sanctioned textbook. You might be thinking, isnt it great we dont do that in the United States . Its true we do not have official textbook issued by the United States federal governments. What we do though have is a system in which the Decisionmaking Authority at the state level is largely largely with bureaucrats who are choosing textbooks created by a handful of the largest publishers. And what weve done in essence is create a kind of cartel. This cartel has produced textbooks that manage it at once to be ideologically barred and boring. They dont reflect the viewpoint of diversity that many teachers desire. Heres the good news, teachers are more entrepreneurial than this system in many cases. Take for example what the Digital Company news ella discovered, administrators say the teachers are using textbooks about half the time about half the days in which schools in session. This is pretty covid conducted precovered. What teachers say is that they are using their official sanction textbooks about a fifth days. I think thats a good thing and as several contributors point out in how to educate an american we need to do more to help district, charter, private, and homeschooling teachers, parents, have ready access to viewpoint diverse resources. These resources need to challenge students on how it is they can become thoughtful patriotic citizens. Robbie george in particular makes a powerful case Viewpoint Diversity should be a public and private good and it must be ultimately the foundation in which we build a sound Civic Education. This part of the solution in particular suggests that the subtitle of the book the conservative vision of tomorrow schools might well be amended to a vision for tomorrow schools for all americans. In other words, sound Civic Education is neither conservative nor progressive, neither left nor right. It does not push a political agenda but it does ennoble our policy. Civics teaches its students young and old the vibrancy of Civil Society. Civics is also inexplicable. Whether or not there is a course called civics for secondary school students, they are constantly forming for good or ill viewpoint on american ideas and institutions. For most Young Americans that worldview is inchoate. Sound civic says Elliott Cohen forcibly argues an essay in this book should be patriotic. He admits, however, at the end of his essay but does not explore as much as i wouldve liked that patriotic history needs guardrails. To ensure it doesnt feed ideological narratives like the lost cause idea relating to the civil war. Cohen advances what might be called for favoritism of this book sections on civic and History Education. Let me just summarize it using his words. Without civics, our Political Institutions are reduced to value lists mechanisms. Without history, there is no Civic Education. Without Civic Education there are no citizens, without citizens there is no free republic. I endorse this line of argument and greatly appreciate Robbie George is reminded that civics and history as well as philosophy in every other humane inquiry must be grounded in humility. Our task is not manly to have another period of lamentation about needs scores but rather to take up the task of supporting teachers, parents and administrators need to recognize that is a hard task to viewpoint diverse. I believe having seen this for the last six years of the bill of Rights Institute that many of our teachers in the social studies community are very much in favor of and indeed do every day of viewpoint diverse presentation of civics and history. There are resources weve created at the bill of Rights Institute that seek to be part of the solution. I just want to mention a couple of them before turning my time over. The website abhas hundreds in fact thousands of different resources that teachers can choose from to support their work. As the site indicates these topics that relate to things that often are really hard subjects. For example, how do we balance liberty and security . How we talk about in a plural way religious liberty . How do we understand immigration . How do we note and celebrate those remarkable compliments done in the spirit of the declaration of independence like the 19th amendment . As the next slide shows is a lot of things i think and be done to directly engage students. They just got done, for example, millions of students taking advanced placement exams. Have seminars and webinars that engage those students with those ideas in a rich conversation and on july 5 the bill of rights interested institute will release a publication called life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, history of the american experiment. It employs 100 leading academic historians who agree on virtually nothing to debate Point Counterpoint all the key questions of history in so doing students are invited to a conversation, a rich conversation that spans decades and centuries of debate and dialogue and we think that the outcome of that kind of thing is the sound civics that this book rightfully points us in the direction of. Thanks so much. David, thank you very much. I think the points about Viewpoint Diversity and the fact that history is neither conservative nor liberal, those tremendously resonate and chester, david recommended a different subtitle for the book. Not that theres necessarily conservative vision but a vision for all children. He ready to change the subtitle . As soon as the press is ready to publish the second edition with 80,000 copies because of the demand this show is generating, yes, lets change the subtitle. Now its time to share your reflections, mike davis has been in the origin story but what was your hope when you decided to create this . We have a number of hopes having to do with reinvigorating education reform and reengaging people on the right in the education reform conversation and effort believing as he and i both do that while we are staunch supporters of School Choice, sometimes when conservatives think about education reform they focus only on choice and ignore all the other things that are involved with quality education, quality choices, with kids who dont make choices, with kids who dont have parents who make choices for them. And with a whole variety of other things. We felt a much broader brush was needed to go at the future education reform issues. The book has 18 chapters ends wins a bunch of topics from education to Family Structure to Student Engagement and student efforts and so on. But we did want to talk primarily today about the civics and history element of the book which is much of it as mike said and a major theme around many of the authors congregate. I been a history warrior i guess since i was a history major back in the late middle ages in college. Ive also despaired i will say over the decades at fordham and elsewhere about the perilous state of social studies education in american schools. Social studies is typically with both history and civics are embedded in an american schools and its often kind of a mishmash actually in the elementary and middle grades and then in high school typically assigned to a single years course in us history and and a half year or one year course come sometimes is called civics sometimes american government, when i was a teacher was called problems american democracy. A course which incidentally in new England Public High School had no curriculum whatsoever the teacher was told to go to the book room and by the stuff the kids might read my illustrate problems american democracy whatever they might be. That was the state of the curriculum back then. One thing david has usefully done is illustrate the extent had variety and quality of many of the materials currently available in the modern world for educators who want them and know what they are doing. And there enabled within their schools, School Systems to use this stuff we are no longer textbook dependent or at least we dont have to be. Theres a wealth of material layer but its use is frustrated by some kind of endemic problems and social studies education. One of which is frankly, poorly trained teachers in many cases. Who are scientists each teach social studies but never he studied much of it themselves. I grew up in the schools where only as today 15 percent of kids are proficient in history on the eighth grade math results. A lot of todays teachers were, to put it bluntly, in the other 85 percent when they were in eighth grade. It didnt necessarily get cured as they made their way through college and prep school. Additional problem is that state policy while it requires social studies usually doesnt make it part of the state accountability system. Usually it doesnt matter for a schools rating from the state whether kids are learning social studies, often it doesnt matter other than the teachers grade whether they pass a social studies course in order to graduate. Often there is nothing like and and and course assessment by which the state will have an external check on whether its learned. Often times this is left to districts to work out. Im glad theres National Social studies curriculum. I totally dont want to be south korea. But it is the case that in this country states are responsible for seeing kids get educated. In todays america not more than any time in my memory that means wanting kids to grow up to become confident citizens of a United States of america. For that to happen, civics and History Education have just got to be part of the fabric. They are intertwined. They should be intertwined. They are certainly intertwined in the k through eight social studies frameworks or standards in most states. And were doing a dreadful job of both of them as evidenced by the results. But him i remember a few years ago the College Board overhauling its advanced placement framework for us history. In so doing they first went into a kind of bullish framework for the u. S. History framework and then people call them on it and they said to their credit lets go back and fix it. The etsu history framework right now is abwith almost no more critics and nicely balanced, not just viewpoint diverse and go farther than that. Id say theres kind of a solid core to it that basically everybody recognize the important concepts and skills. Were talking about a nontrivial numbers of kids. Hundreds of thousands of High School Kids every year take a psu history. Im offering it right now merely as an example of practice possible to do as well. That if our schools and districts and states set out to do it well and incidentally also made it count which ap makes it count for those kids, i think we could be doing vastly better job of preparing future citizens of the United States that we are doing today. Thank you very much and im delighted to turn it back to you en. Chester, thank you for that. I share your belief that there shouldnt be a National Social studies curriculum that should be mandated by the government but maybe that there should be a mandate that one does exist and required statebystate. Jonah, you wrote a great piece that used james bond as a vehicle through which to talk about irradiating the past. Tell us about your reflections on the past . Share, and all the requisite thank youse and im honored to be here and all that. I borrowed from the movie goldfinger james bond movie to make the point that in the movie the villains plan is not to rob fort knox, which is what the audience is led to believe in the beginning. What he intends to do is detonate a small dirty bomb inside fort knox irradiating all the gold to make it useless for generations to come thereby making his own stockpile of gold infinitely more valuable. I use it as a metaphor for the way the howard zinn left and others in our 1619 project a just to basically detoxify everything on the good side of the ledger in American History so that the only history thats left is one tale of victimization and woe and bigotry and that these things never shrink in the Rearview Mirror of history they just become like the mark of cain in our permanent problem with america that is never gotten better. My own view on all of this, i like that abi have School Choice. I sent my daughter to private school. Most of my kids in dc present send their kids to amost my friends in dc send their kids to private schools. Its probably worse in the schools and the Public Schools because at least somewhere in the chain theres a politician who is worried they might get in trouble if they teach something terrible in Public School but the people who send their kids to private schools they want their kids to be taught all the social justice giblets that will get them into an Ivy League School and being able to talk about the permanent stain of slavery and all these kinds of things is a feature not a bug. My own view is that much like a ai think theres a sink such as a patriotic version of history and i think the word patriotic probably needs to go though. Much like the word conservative needs to go because its just bad branding even though i think theres nothing wrong with them. My own view borrowed and large part of you all is that conservatism really just boils down to gratitude, when you strip it of its epistemological and partisan and philosophical priors, it boils down to the idea that what are the things that you find lovely and lovable about the society you live in, the world that you live in that you want to preserve and pass on to your children this was edinburgs contract between the living, the dead, the unborn. It is a story to tell about america that does that and you have to teach the howard zinn stuff. You have to teach the slavery and the trail of tears and all that. In part because if you dont teach that, you cannot teach the story of the improvement of this country toward a more perfect union. I very much want to teach, the first thing you have to teach is that slavery was evil it was a moral evil, then you can point out that existed in a lot of places one of the remarkable things about the west is that we had it but got rid of it. But second to it being evil it was profoundly hypocritical for a new nation born under the proposition that we are all equal in the eyes of god and should therefore be equal in the arms of government to have an institution like slavery. No hypocrisy for spain to have slavery but there is a profound hypocrisy for a country founded on the patriotic ideals we have, not the nationals with patriotic ideals. But the great thing about hypocrisy is you can only be hypocritical if you have principles. Hypocrisy illuminates the principles of this country was founded on and it also eliminates the best version of ourselves. So theres a wonderful story to tell, not about 1619, which as far as i can tell is just shoddy propagandistic history, doesnt mean everything and it is wrong but the contextualization of it is by my life ludicrous. And the ideas that the american founding American Revolutionary war was fought to protect slavery is just back 10 ab back to guano crazy. You want to teach all the bad stuff and teach the story of the unfolding realization of the principles that make this country exceptional that make this country a place we should be grateful to live in. A place where we can understand the illuminated sacrifices and shortcoming of the generations that came before us in a way that is honest and soulsearching i think if you can get that into the curriculum a lot of the civics stuff would sort itself out. The viewpoint ever ill disclose on this my real job is in journalism, not this abin my view is that some of the best journalism in america is opinion journalism. Because you know where the author is coming from and the best opinion journalism is like an argument in a court of law we all know that the prosecution is biased against the defendant and we all know the defense is biased in favor of the defendant but each side has rules they must follow they have to tell the truth, they have commercial evidence, and they have to deal with the other sides best arguments or they will lose. Viewpoint diversity should just be seen like that to me. Different sides of the question that are presented honestly, the characterize the other sides position fairly and allow the students and the teachers to illuminate the various issues and contexts that make this a significant thing to understand in the first place. I think this book can help and all that. Thanks again for having it. Thank you, thats excellent. Sarah, the affleck center has beens phenomenal worker been watching several of the webinars you been producing recently. Tell us about some of the resources that you provide to address these issues around civic and your views here. Absolutely. Im going to carry it on with the theme of talking about the importance of Viewpoint Diversity but im going to tweak it a little bit because what we do at ashbrook is to talk about text, not textbook. We are not interested in a patriotic history or howards in history or however you want to characterize this things. Its the history thats the product of historians filtering through and interpreting the past for students and teachers. What we do is we connect students and teachers and interested citizens with actual documents from the past and one of the coeditors of our core document collections it will be focused on different time periods in our nations past. Each of those volumes brings together somewhere between 25 and 40 documents that come from different people who actually lived through the things we want to investigate. They can be letters they could be speeches. But they are not just like great men on the stage pushing history forward. They could be things for people who were down in the dirt and being affected by these policies and sort of thinking through them. One thing i really think is important when we talk about Viewpoint Diversity is that its not just Viewpoint Diversity in our own time but actually understanding that there were multiple viewpoints at all times in americas past. If we want to try to engage as many of those in the conversation as possible and to allow them to speak on their own without implying layer upon layer of flaws. Thats difficult. In the 17th century scholar by training so i know that words will look at today and say, thats the obvious meaning, it didnt mean that in the 17th century and you cant put the text in front of the submitter and expect them to know that. Theres obviously some scaffolding that has to take place. When you begin to do that work and what we do at ashbrooks do teacher seminars where we bring the documents and the teachers into the room and sit around the whole square terrible do the work with them home model and engage them in that process. So they can go back and do it with their students. When you do that work then you really can begin to think for yourself about the past and not to accept the interpretation of even the most eminent scholars. I think thats the real big key for me is thinking about this Viewpoint Diversity essay which Robbie Georges essay was great but i wouldve liked to have thought about it more historically and chronologically as well as in our current context. The other thing i would like to say about the volume and we can maybe pick this up a little bit in the q a is so much of the focus of the conversation has been on schooling as an students of the context of k12 school. But education and learning and particularly civic learning takes place in many more environments then the four walls of the classroom. My own background before i started working with ashbrook was actually in Museum Education so theres lots of great public history sites covering all kinds of stories that would otherwise be forgotten or that would lack nuance because we dont have text to engage them. But we do have these artifacts and we do have places where we can go and engage with the past in a tangible way. I think it wouldve been really interesting if somebody in among the contributors had thought about what role do public history organizations are history museums have in this process. And even beyond that especially if we think about School Reform moving forward in a post covid19 world, how much do we actually need to send our students to School Monday to friday versus allowing them to get out there and engage with other elements of Civil Society and apprenticed themselves to wise mentors and gain practical skills about actually cooperating with other people or learning to apply some of these character traits that we want them to have instilled in them in their lives. I will leave the rest for q a. I think its a great distinction like text versus textbooks. Thank you for those comments. Were about to move into a discussion amongst ourselves as i mentioned earlier will be doing q a so please submit questions either directly by email abor educatingamericansaei. We been living with Civic Education scores in 15 percent of our kids understanding civics and history for a long time. Whats the risk if we dont do what ashbrook does so well which is not providing interpretations of history but actual text that show the Viewpoint Diversity that existed at the time whats the danger . Is it just conservatives hyperventilating. Whats the real risk here. The general risk is worsening as the policy of country divides into echo chambers and other forms of ab at the expense of the owner them. So to be able to tolerate 15 percent proficient in a is one thing if the country is holding together. The risk gets a lot worse if the country is in other ways coming apart even agreements on which tax to discuss would be a pretty good start here. I think jonah really hit the nail on the head when he is talking about hypocrisy. Kind of the important educated purpose of hypocrisy. The risk i think of those low percentages is not that students dont know particular facts but that they dont know what the principles are that make them say slavery was wrong and i should be for stuff about it. If you dont understand the moral truths that is in conflict with a regime of human ownership then you have no Real Foundation for the kind of moral judgment the citizens need to make about contemporary problems either. I think that whats lost is a sense of ownership of a core set of political principles. I would second that i think theres a challenge that the hyper polarization and the kind of hyper partisanship weve seen presents for students can come down to something very practical. Can i maintain a friendship with my friends and still disagree with them . And would you think on it at that level, the vitality is then really whats at stake is civic friendship. The idea that we can disagree about certain things while Still Holding to those things that make us unknown him and i think the definition of what those texts are cosometimes we overcomplicate these things. What we try to do at the bill of Rights Institute is put people back to the declaration of independence and the constitution. Its amazing how many law students go through without reading those two documents let alone any of the federalists. Think of what it is for a seventh grader to confront those. And certainly to do that without the intermediation of scholarly opinion weighing down on them. The first thing you have to do is confront the text. I think the key thing that can emerge from that then our discussions and debates that dont have a particular end in mind immediately. The outcome of this process is something thats very good at sustaining the republic. But ultimately as i think this volume made very clear that thing thats at stake is our future. Period. The abin me wants to add two comments. First to david. When they confront the document such as the declaration of the constitution they also need to understand why the people that wrote those were writing them. What was going on in the world. What was england doing that suddenly made people want to declare their independence. I want to say to sarah that in addition to the moral principle that slavery is wrong, its also good if kids understand why in the 17th and 18th and 19th centuries, what were the economics as well as the views that led people to have slaves. Its one thing to say that its wrong and was wrong and another thing to say why did it happen . I think its important for us though not to pretend like there was some golden age in the past where we were doing this all really well. In much of American History people were going to school much longer than maybe eighth grade education. It was only until very recently we had mass Higher Education and there was still a sense that the country could come together and address great challenges. I think we have the sense today that everything is sort of splintering. We are all in our own little bubbles in terms of media and polarization. I think its a little unfair to say that schools are going to fix that. Obviously the people who are lets say the baby boomers today they were educated in a very different way generations ago and theyre still part of the problem its not like they are behaving great when it comes to civics and citizenship. In civics friendliness. We cant put this all on the schools but because we are at a place where there are so few common experiences that people have, there is not a draft anymore, theres not three Network Television stations we all watch. School is one of those experiences thats more common. Trying to get schools back to this place where they see preparing citizens and i love that term. Sort of the civic friendship as a huge part of the mission. We been not as focused on this mission of the schools and especially Public Schools but all schools in preparing young people for citizenship. That just getting back to that, checker and i had a callolleagu ours that when you look at the Biggest School districts in the country, almost none of them mention citizenship in the mission statement. Like, how does that happen . It just reflects that weve gotten away from this notion and need to get back to it. I just have one quick abi agree we cant count on schools to fix all these things i think is concentric stroop circle starting with parents but one of the things im fairly obsessed with these days is the dangers of populism and nationalism in these sorts of things. One of the things Civics Educations does is it allows for just everyday citizens but also political leaders who are responsible to those citizens to be a bit more rooted, rooted in the facts, rooted in the soil of reality and when you live in a society like we do right now where its really just all about competing narratives on television and the internet that are designed to arouse anger more than enlighten, that sort of stuff whether she went on or racists on the right or some racist on the left, when people are not equipped with the basic facts to say, oh my gosh, what im hearing here is bs. It becomes all the more easier to manipulate the people and to whip them up into an outrage state of mind. Its a wonderful essay to John Courtney murray i think written in the early 60s where he says adeletelasta the real threat at the gates of the city facing America Today is it really the communist but the idiots. What he meant by that is he was using idiot in the original greek term which meant someone who wasnt schooled enough to be fit to behave in politics. Democratization of all of our politics, the democratization of all the parties the democratization of journalism to social media and all these kinds of things is letting the most persuasive idiots have wildly outsized power and then legitimately dangerous and the danger that weve had in the past but the technology was not on the side of idiots the way it is today. This makes it i think all the more important to teach civics. Just basic facts. As someone who runs a schools, while we obviously have a role to play, its a very heavy burden to think that we have the sole role to play in enhancing Civic Education. The institutions through which young people learn what it meant to be an american communitybased organization, their own family, faith community, all that we need a renewal. One thing thats interesting running schools. We talk about this idea of america as a selfgoverning free society, that assumes we have individuals who know how to self govern. This idea of rights and responsibilities and typically when we have this discussion it seems like theres a lot of focus on entitlements and rights but not a lot about responsibility. What would this group want to young people to understand about their responsibility to be an american . What is that look like . I will jump in and suggest that we might look to one of the things thats part of the 1619 project is a point of departure. Under the curriculum put together the New York Times by the Pulitzer Center there not related to the organization that issues the pulitzer prize. Its interesting when you look at the lesson plans that are part of this because one of them is something called the erasure poetry. Imagine that you take the declaration this is the example the user several other documents. What you do as a young person is blocked out the words that reveal then those words that are left your feelings about that document or that statement. So a and your feelings. Right. This goes to your point about kind of your puzzle of why is it that a private school so often are the ones that are most prone to take this sort of thing. When we dont have that shared reflection on, whats the text first . Like you were saying sarah, how can we offer a critique of it . I think most High School Students are certainly ready to enter into that critique mode but first you have to spend the bulk of it on really reflecting an understanding whats there before you do in erasure of home. I think theres a way in which that realitybased education requires a confrontation and it doesnt have to be boring. It can be really exciting. You get into these really big debates anybody thats taught i remember when i would teach slavery we spent a lot of time on trying to find out the question why is it wrong. Thats that young education. I have two sons ages eight and 10 they love to enter into these debates and i think theyre capable of doing it and we rob them if we dont invite them to come into these kinds of debates. And contemplating the process that a 12yearold editing abthat may be our reality. If these things are so outrageous and checker you mentioned earlier think goodness the federal government isnt not imposing the curriculum but whats the proper role of federal or state oversight if School Districts can just independently adopt curriculum that is so antithetical to the core values of the country. The states can assert as much influence as they choose to even in socalled local controlled states. States decide whats the standards and whats on the assessments and where the graduation assessments. Some states have model curricula, some of which is pretty good. They are almost never obligatory curriculum that is to say districts and schools choose to what they want to use them or not. But they could be mandated. Could have a high quality statewide curriculum aligned with a highquality state assessments. Then the challenge would be to prepare teachers with materialist appropriately and successfully teach it. I think theres lots of opportunity here at the state level, lets leave the feds out of it for the time being. And the response on that . Im actually leery of state level curricula. Many moons ago i served on one iteration of new jerseys redrafting of it States Social studies standards and the things that seemed important to include warlike pet project they were just as prone to the kinds of pork belly finagling as any other political agenda is. There was this statewide pretty rigorous scope and sequence of what people were supposed to do but that didnt mean it was good. The fact that it existed actually prevented teachers who wanted to do good work and wanted to engage their students with a meaningful dialogical way to do that because there was this brought marks that had to happen to the scope and sequence. Im leery of standardization in general. And i can hear that for sure. Fordham where checker and i work have been reviewing state standards for work. Most of them are terrible. The written by committee. They come out of the mediocre at best, one thing we havent talked about though is when we might be able to shortcircuit some of these debates. Thats when kids are little. When we talk about High School Kids of course all issues of on Viewpoint Diversity metal or holland. But if were talking about five, six, seven, eightyearolds, i think most americans would agree with, lets just make sure they get some of the basics. And hear the stories and learn about heroes. Have an inclusive list of heroes that they learn about. Yet as bill bennett wrote in his chapter we just simply are not doing that. Most american Elementary Schools today do not teach any history until at the soonest may be fourth or fifth grade. If by then. Its because of this notion that we just cannot use all the time we can for reading comprehension. What does that look like . Its boring, repetitive, exercises about find the main idea. Tell us what the narratives point is. Its terrible. It turns out that not only is it boring, it also doesnt actually work in terms of teaching kids how to read. If you want to teach a kid how to read you teach them how to sound out the language phonics and all that and then you need to actually teach them so. History and geography and art and music. That is huge potential that seems to me is that if we could get Elementary Schools teaching history again in a meaningful way, it might look mostly patriotic or jonah will give us a better word than patriotic to use for that. Yo teenagers think that history is boring. The six of us actually like history. Most teenagers actually get it and they had a because it is not been taught in a very inspiring way. So this teacher to them what they want to her about in faraway times and places. And there are materials available for little kids to. Theres the sequence from the chronology foundation that does a wonderful job of editing with the history and into the Language Arts actually. And he joined them together. Its a wonderful video called liberties can area is well taught basic course in cartoon video form. So theres lots of stuff they can work for little kids. Mike and materials for young students. Sarah most field trips happen in the younger years. For the time you get to middle school and then forget it in high school. Theres too much content that we have to cover. So we can take our kids to place his work history happens and we can engage them with the past that is very meaningful and that will resonate for a long time. Even if they forget the specifics of the facts. I think the point out in their chapter. Chester finn i think 85 million americans went to mount vernon over the years. While those numbers are declining, even pre covid19, there are many ways to have the kind of really important and vital engagement. And when you ask parents you want value touchier younger kids in schools. They will often recoil and stable weight, whose value. However if you asked them, would you like responsibility, courage, other virtues taught. They say yes read anything without being too preachy, there are excellent curricula out there there are story based the negation of moral imagination of young people. I can build a kind of runway for the future Civic Education. The one thing that you have all highlighted how important it is to teach history. His start teaching the social norms by which the young people understand what it is to be an american. Mike, you mention sequencing and for those who are familiar with it, is pretty overwhelming data that says that if you finish just a high school degree, and do fulltime work, marriage and then children, 97 percent of those folks follow that course in that order. David they have ended up in the middle class or beyond. This extraordinary. But it seems that when conservatives have talked about social norms, it is taken as potentially racist or imposing middleclass values. Should that not be as important when youre talking about Civic Education and talk about the social norm. That it defines what it means to be american. Ian this is a source of frustration for me. One of the main problems we have in our society, as that relates will preach with the practice. The divorce rate among the top when file, whatever dividing line you want to put on it, the 1 percent or 2 percent of whatever, the family, divorce rate, flattened out and basically corrected itself for the most part. Twenty or 30 years ago, for those people. It turns out that with the success sequence. Delayed gratification, religious attendance. Family integrity, these are things that make people successful. And they have the kind of social moral and financial and economic capital that allows them to be successful. But there is this thing in our culture which says that youre allowed to tell other people how to live. Even though, people who are poor or otherwise disadvantaged, who need that guidance or than anybody else. If youre rich, you can afford your sins. You can afford your mistakes ive always, it is an old story now. Madonna who made her career with what i used to call slattern cheek. Jonah she gave an interview to some magazine where she said, she was named supermom by super magazine. She had never changed a diaper because she had a staff of like 200 people. She was calle she can preach alf things about nontraditional values and afford whatever mistakes that she makes. Somebody down the social economic ladder, this is a way madonna thinks the world work some is good enough for me. They cannot have for the kind of mistakes that she can make. This is a cross society, new class types. There are more economic benefits to get at least equal to getting married as to going to college for most people. How often do we hear how vital it is do you go to college at versus how vital it is to get married. And was a much more lasting source of happiness and its not college. My wife would be happy to say that i agree with you. I think a point to make in the virtual table here is to this debt which Character Education in school is modeling the behavior by adults in schools. In the way the kids learn how to behave and with respect to other kids and adults in the people outside is watching adults do it correctly. So thats actually one of the prices we are paying for the virtual environments right now. Its the young kids are not in school sing these models. Their home sing whatever models they have in the home which may be fine. But theyre not seeing the other models that they might be saying if they were in school. Thank you all buried im excited now to move to questions and we have many. Social studies teacher in high school. He is a veteran High School Social studies teacher bradys looking for ways to include it character Virtual Development into his curriculum. What character traits, civic virtues are values are key American Values and virtues. What are those key five or ten or whatever number values the need to be taught to High School Students. Sarah you can start with Ben Franklins listen to his biography. His autobiography. You have to be humble, industrious, somebody help me out. Franklin is not my favorite founder. [laughter]. Of england knows this very, because of his writings of his autobiography and because the who is he it is fighting for, his son. And he is writing it after mecca already has been the mark. And i started thinking about how we bring along a generation of genuine citizens. Thats list as he is remembering what he tried to train himself to do as a young person, is really modeled at that exact question. What does it take to be a virtuous republican. If. There was also pretty good good list as i remember from my adolescence. I recall trustworthy, loyal, helpful friendly courteous kind obedient cheerful, thrifty brave clean and unclean in reference. Sarah that was very impressive. Audacity to layout social norms and she was heavily attacked for even entering what is it about the ease of which chester you can recite a voice or sarah is talking about ben franklin bridge what is it that seem so obvious in the past now and the source of whats going on. Chester i think there is a thing that we lost that suggest a virtue really does have something very much to do with public things. Thats in part what franklin was getting at. The project was actually hatched in his 20s. He realized he was the kind of guy that always wanted to win the argument. So he put together this list of a dozen virtues. And as a friend of his, if you look at this, you suggest like prevent anything else but he wanted to embark on a project on what he called moral perfection. Like a friend said, youre kind of arrogant, wanted to try humility. And franklin to his credit took him up on that. And then he tried to go through and put that into action. He worked in a virtue each week until he got it right. He realized humility was really the hardest. I think there is an element here important that teachers know this. There is a skill Building Quality to the norms that we are talking about. And often times we try to put this into something called action civics. I dont think it is a very good fit. But mentally what you are doing the before you have that content, youre running out the project very often have a very kind of almost active estate tenor. However, i do the conservatives also need to be open to the idea the skill building is on in schools and beyond the schools. It is vital. You need to think maybe about the norms of the content. The principles really ultimately. But that they are doing things to put these into action, is a good thing. And well constructed can part of our formal curriculum. David not just for individual character but the character of the American People. Im actually someone who believes in american conceptualism is really understudied. Something we are number one. Is that we are just different. Because we didnt have all sorts of Different Things about america, some were really good, some are really bad. Were more violent than other countries. But one of the really good thing since we are also born selfsufficient. Theres a bit where in europe, the cart is overturned on a bridge, everyone stands around for the constable to come and take control of the situation. But the americans, they just off get together, the pick of the card and the moving out of the road. I think the teaching a little bit about his really important in part because at least among the elite kids, the opinion makers and influencers, the meritocracy not going to get all into this stuff but the meritocracy is quitting a lot of kids who are good at taking tests. A lot of kids are good at jumping through the hoops that theyre supposed to do to get their piece of cheese at the end of the maze. But they are fragile. The get out of the Education System and theyre looking for someone to ask permission to do the next thing. It is a longterm problem for the mark in character the American People is that if you have grown a whole life weve always had a third Party Authority figure to adjudicate any interpersonal conflict and you just know how to follow instructions really well, something about america that we have lost and thats really important. It. Sarah i think john, i think it also kids are determined im thinking that there are absolute truths. Franklin adds humility but in the book he says to be humble like socrates and jesus. Soon neither of those are wishywashy men. They were like this is for you own this for me. No. Socrates is it. It is a true understanding of philosophy. In his annoying people with it. Its not humility in the sense of everybodys truth is equally valid but its also being to come to an understanding of truth and make a commitment to it and to engage in a dialogue while Still Standing around ground. And take no, there is a right and wrong here. We have another question. What role do Teacher Education programs play in creating civic illiteracy. Now can Teacher Education especially social studies be reformed to contribute to civic literacy. David, and sarah, he may have thoughts here. David is a big question as a good one. I think the main thing that happens while there is some modest steps taken in the last decade of to try to begin to address this, one of the biggest problems is that in training our teachers to be, theres so much emphasis in the teachers colleges on the pedagogy the master is left behind all too often. I believe that is the major thing that needs to be corrected it. By the way gives the teachers the greatest confidence when we are in the classroom. Even greater Teacher Attrition been in some of the other fields where attrition is already skyhigh. Its a pretty intimidation if you havent done it. To try to get up in front of a bunch of people even if they are young. And talk about things that you dont know anything about present we talk a lot about critical thinking. You need to have something about which you are owing to think critical. This major reform that we can see in our teacher colleges. The truth about teaching and cant something unless you know it. You havent learned it, you probably cannot teach it. And the challenge of course is that a summary people are mourning in college when it comes to history, is exactly what we have been discussing. Is this revision of history that may not be so much based in truth but the social justice ideals and all of the rest. Im not optimistic about putting many eggs in the reform basket. People of been trying for 100 years and failing. Prickly, when youre talking about social study teachers, in most states, notes pending as mh time in school as the Elementary School teachers are pretty you just dont need that many methods and so you really need a history degree. I would come back to this notion around curriculum again. Heres one way to try to push us in a more positive direction. What is it that we want students to actually be able to do. Lets think about the student work. What kind of essay for example, a welleducated american appropriators should be able to answer. You can look at this in the ap u. S. History. This is a pretty High Standard but even if youve not just below that. One of the broken writing do not our students or oral presentations, what kinds of basic knowledge and other skills to we want them to have. If you focus on that, then you can seven say okay, how do we prepare teachers to get that kind of work out of kids pretty can help kids get to the point where you can complete this kind of assignments effectively. As a parent now, going through this remote teaching, homeschooling, what we are saying is what schools become is kind of been really struck out most instruction. Very teacher instruction that my kids are seeing anymore is basically now just the assignment. At the beginning of the week, heres an assignment and the kids need to work their way through. And so it feels it stripped down but at the end of the day that is what education is. As the work we expect the students to do. So i think we stay focused on that. Then we might be able to get to a more constructive place pretty but it does start you into those curricular issues rather than expecting a struck chester was exciting so many years ago. In massachusetts to sorta be able to wing it is 22 yearold into the best you can. Theres not a strategy thats going to get us very far in my opinion. We have a question is a spanish interpreted. She is asking, how we educate children this parents do not care or do not encourage education. As an educator i think i might say, i dont think is necessarily that pete parents okay, is just the date major system with the school is not discovered. But when the pandemic, a lot of parents of got a lot more insight to other kids are actually doing. I think not as happy. How do we educate kids his parents may not be has engaged for a whole host of reasons. Human my the most parents do care. They may not be skillful navigators of an education they may not be good home instructors because they lack personal familiarity with what it is that kids are supposed to learn pretty many parents simply distracted by the things print jobs in such duties and obligations. One chapter the book, what is the meaning of School Choice for kids basically dont have parents. My foster cousin things like that. Recommendation there is any tools for some kids. Actually taken much more active and encompassing and some people would say more, Charter Schools have shown this. A lot of other schools are based on an outrage, it is possible to help parents learn to become more engaged once i realized that is expected of them. The school is not a repair shop. I think parents, and whats happening in your schools respect to getting parents information on how to help her children. An extraordinary amount. And appears very much appreciate the role that we are in school to provide resources to parents. And much more visibility and through the work in effect there now playing the role of teacher. I think there is a great opportunity here. Some income i would assume our parents would love to be more engaged. It is not the date dont care, they may not have the tools for being more active and engaged. I would like to say thank you to serena for the work that you are doing and just echo what you just said he had buried i believe there is a role for parents where often times when it is in this time when its hard to figure out exactly what you kids are studying, when and as a portal. How do you get on it pretty time concerns from all of these things. Even pre covid19, many an exercise in which the child is asking the parents a question. Our grandparents are guardians. What you think of what were going through now. Get those proverbial dinnertable conversations going pretty nothing out of the dinner table. We work with thousands of educators who are working with students in the el l communities never resource called being an american. It is designed to pull down his ideas were Little Learners and their parents in fact. With those basic things these americans who are pseudo. I think that we need is more of a dialogue going forward. And hope thing that can come out of covid19 that would be unexpected and good, is for more of that interchange work parents are supporting even if it is modest steps, the hard work that is happening in the classrooms and vice versa. The teachers are recognizing is not easy for a lot of parents to be totally involved in their kids academic lives. One more thing. A little editing what your kids are watching their not in school. That could also go a long ways tiffany on the age of the cans. Have them watch the crash course on history. Have them watch things that will have them read it was a lot of wonderful things that will educate them. Extremely well as long as someone is choosing those things for them. Rather than some of the less appealing things. Rush is a very appealing but less valuable things are available. Good reminder of parental checker. Schoolhouse rock. It was awesome. Jack black. My daughter when she was much younger, she was this nostalgia thing which makes is because shes my daughter. And she wouldnt know what i watch when i was a kid. And i told her about schoolhouse rock. My whole family, we ended up three watching all of them. Some of them are just amazing thats how patriotic some of them are and how sort of funny and well that they are rated their great little gateway drug for little kids. Anyway that is my push for. Not the analogy you necessarily want to use. [laughter]. Avenue is actually one of the authors in the book, civic and Higher Education. We would like to hear more comments about educating american adults. What about college and noncollege and postcollege any beginning more americans to be more cynically or literate. A great point is that many market adults clearly do love history because it is one of the most popular forms of books that people still buy. We have these celebrity authors. Many him are not academics, they continuing buying books. Theres clearly a demand out there for history. I would also say, talking about technology or things that are out there on the internet, theres a pre are pretty cool way into history for a lot of families today. To be able to do this research, looking at primary documents and going back many generations. They tell the story of your own family. Is something you can do with kids. And you can do as adults. Again, as a way to really rekindle that love for history. So there are ideas on history. Only two others to talk more about civics. The philanthropy roundtable should come up with a list. Sarah i think is an opportunity where if we imagine, not just tinkering at the margins of schooling but rarely free thinking was. Looks like i do much of our tax dollars go to Public Schools. Maybe if people had more control over extend will it come they would spend more of it at local history sites. Maybe we can redirect some of the tax dollars from school to localllocal history sites. There are ways we can encourage engagement in the community with history. Not just in the atmosphere of things that are published or packaged and developed by scholars actually targeting people out into the places that are in our own backyards. These been defined too often by boring charts. Theres a reason why a lot of adults are not as engaged on the civic side of the van and might be with dave in the colon and other manifestations of the kind of popular history. Many families can go on together is something that we need to do a better job of, very practical questions of the strengthening deceit many constitutional educations become the realm of experts. And you see that in the way of even how are clinical actors look at it. He is divine more entertained and now we will let the lawyers take care of that bring those questions about the law and the constitution. Twenty just bringing it to a level was very conversational about Current Events louise to get behind the political horse race, there are organizations that are doing out there. Ive certainly seen disengagement by families and by adults. Amazingly we are coming to the end of our time. So i want to thank all of these incredible panelists. But i want to give each of you 30 seconds to one minute to answer the question. What is the call to action. How to educate an american, if youre inspired and you purchased this book, how to educate an american. What is it that you would do to revise education. First and foremost to act locally. Show up at your local school board meetings. Ask them, what text are you using for history curriculum. What is that look like and are we doing a good job teaching in a balanced way. If an educated promising questions and also in terms of the civic values that are own schools live up to those values. Are we walking the dog. Because kids and teenagers especially arent going to follow, is our example about our lectures. Run for local school board. Look into the views of candidates. Educate your own children and some of the ways youre talking about on the show. At the session. Then take them to Mount Rushmore in gettysburg. In those places once were allowed outdoors. Jonah i was the safe think locally aspect of this as well. I do believe the fight for liberty and all good things begins in your own backyard. I think that is something too many people to outsource National Movements and experts rather than doing basics that are close to home. His intent is already covered, but a road trip when this thing is overrated dont let your kids have devices with the drive. Got a couple interesting historical places. Talk about them and dont let them look at the devices. That would do a lot. Ian thank you david and sarah we have one more minute left. Sarah find something in our ancient history is of interest to you and then write about it than. Cheering and applause. Primary resources to go them. But dont get into the echo chamber of your own head. Ian and david. Trento speak out on differences that are separate from your own. Keep in thinking that what would it be that for those who are coming to this country the naturalization process to be adopted so to speak by those who are in the community. His actions like that in the kind of local thinking it will be able to turn this around. Ian i would say i want to ensure that her kids to understand the rights and response abilities what it means to be an american. In resident country to afford them the opportunity to be agents of their own destiny. We come to the end. Please consider purchasing how to educate an american. We look forward to the followup doing great things for kids. Starting now about to be in prime time, we take a look at books about the market president s. Then we pick up new summer series featuring several programs from our archives. David mccullough, christopher hitchens, and others. Tonight is a look and awardwinning historian, but he appearances on book tv over the past 20 years. And for information, check your Program Guides a