More than ever, civic learning is needed to ensure each and every person across this country has the necessary tools to engage as members of our self-governing society. However, schools are also a growing part of the culture wars. According to a 2022 National Education Association Survey, nearly half of schools reported challenges teaching about race and racism and practices related to LGBTQ students in the classroom. As we've discussed before on the show, book bans, funding cuts, and teacher shortages are also making teaching anything — let alone civics — more difficult.
At this critical juncture, Civic Learning Week unites students, educators, policymakers, and private sector leaders to energize the movement for civic education across the nation. This week's episode includes two experts who talk about the theory and practice of strengthening civics education in these polarizing times.
Emma Humphries is Chief Education Officer and Deputy Director of Field Building for iCivics, the non-profit founded by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to reinvigorate civics through free, interactive learning resources. Emma serves as iCivics’ pedagogical expert, ensures its resources evolve to a place of greater equity and deeper learning for all students, and advocates for more and better civic education across the country.
Ashley Berner is Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and Associate Professor of Education. She served previously as the Deputy Director of the CUNY Institute for Education Policy and as an administrator at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. Her most recent book is Pluralism and American Public Education: No One Way to School.
Civic Learning Week
iCivics poling on bipartisan support for civic education
Diffusing the History Wars: Finding Common Ground in Teaching America's National Story
Can the courts save civics education?
When religion and democracy collide
Sore losers are bad for democracy
On democracy's doomsayers
What does it take to sustain democracy?
Fannie Lou Hamer's fight continues today
Andrew Yang and Charlie Dent on the future of America's political parties
The soul of democracy
Jonathan Haidt on democracy's moral foundations [rebroadcast]
Why social media is so polarizing — and what we can do about it
What makes a campaign deplorable?
Fighting for democracy in the GOP
Tom Nichols on democracy's worst enemy
Independent commissions alone can't create fair maps
Voter suppression doesn't repeat, but it rhymes
A love letter to democratic institutions
How Amazon is disrupting democracy
Abortion is not always a clash of absolutes
Millennials' slow climb to political power
A summer of the individual vs. the common good
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