This is NOT a course in government! It is the rambling of a frustrated teacher and first-time blogger. I don't know if I will be any good at this but maybe...
I am getting pretty tired of people talking about how our kids don’t get any "civics" education anymore. There are plenty of us who work quite hard to make sure that our students know our history and the documents on which our nation was built. One would think that, with communications being so advanced, we could be showing them how the government actually works in real time. One would think, but one would be wrong.
In preparation for Constitution Day in September, many teachers spend hours preparing lessons for their classes. There are endless resources in textbooks and on the internet and it’s difficult to cull them to a manageable number. It is particularly helpful to be able to go to the Library of Congress website and find primary documents to illustrate our lessons. After studying and discussing the material, the most obvious next step is to turn on C-SPAN so that the kids can actually see their government at work – or maybe not so much.
On any given day during the time school is in session, Congress is not, at least not in the sense that most of us can understand or appreciate. There have been many times I have turned on the TV to show the class something on my computer and before I get it all set up, they see whatever is happening in Congress. They are really interested and want to see how it all works, but it only takes seconds, not even a minute, for them to get disillusioned. What they often see is not lively debate or substantive legislative action, but a lone speaker orating to a camera in an empty chamber. It’s hard to convince them that conducting "morning business" at 2 p.m. central time is a responsible thing to do. (I haven’t had the heart to tell them that I’ve seen morning business at 7 p.m.) I can’t blame them for losing interest. If I weren’t such an info-junkie, I would, too.
The problem is, I cannot honestly tell them how our government really works. If I did, I’d get lambasted by the school and the parents. (At this point in time, I’d probably end up with the feds after me for some kind of made-up offense.) More important than any of these, though, is that I want them to turn on to politics and government, not turn off. I am old enough to know that they will be in charge when I retire. It is the ultimate in enlightened self-interest for me to build the best citizens I can now.
It is like walking a tightrope. I need them to know that their government can work like the Schoolhouse Rock version but that it often doesn’t. They need to know that the government is theirs, that they can and must take responsibility for it. Communications technology is such that there is no excuse for anyone to be ignorant of issues or candidates. Everyone can find some way to connect with their elected officials, and they should do it often. Don’t let them forget where they came from and who’s really in charge.
This is too long. I get on a roll and don’t know when to quit. Teachers do that - often! Thanks for letting me speak.