CONSUMER GOVERNMENT COURSE STRUCTURE
This blog, in a series of postings, continues describing and justifying the adoption of a consumer government approach to secondary civics courses.[1] It is proposed as a mid-way step from the structural/national perspective that those courses currently feature to a federalist approach this blog promotes. That latter approach most generally sees the aim of civics education to encourage a sense of US citizenry as being a partnership where each citizen enjoys rights (as defined by the federalist construct) but has duties and obligations that true partners would respect.
This proposed course, due to its emphasis on student needs, must define its own structure of the subject matter. In that vein, it has students dealing with problem situations which allows students to develop appropriate skills and knowledge reflected in the course’s aims. To develop such a course, one must have students engage in enough problem situations of varied types and have them deal with different levels of government – though such a course would centrally situate the role of local government. But in the end, the course needs to be sufficiently comprehensive.
The problem of conceptualizing such a varied subject matter and yet presenting a subject adequately cohesively is that it moves curriculum planning into two different directions. Here is this blogger’s thought regarding this diversion; this proposed course is conceptualized in the following manner:
The first concern is to introduce the student to a brief overview of the structure of government at the federal, state, and local levels. This course of study will provide a foundation of what government is. As opposed to the typical government course, though, this presentation only conveys major functions and processes of the prominent governmental structures.
Second, the course then proceeds to take the individual students through a series of problem areas beginning with the self/home environment and working up to the international stage. These environments are the settings in which government-related problems manifest themselves.
With these settings accounted for one identifies, in general terms, the landscapes the course addresses.
At each environmental level, the question can be asked: when dealing at this level, what personal relationships or relations with social institutions (family, education, economy, social class, or government) generate the necessity or the motivation to deal with government? This process produces, in typical lives, a list of problem areas (e.g., taxes, marital responsibilities, parental issues, income concerns, etc.). This list, in turn, serves as the main lesson topics of the subject matter and with that, one has what the next posting will address.
[1] The last posting, “Aims for Consumer Government Course” (March 26, 2024), suggested a list of aims for such a course. They are:
To prepare students for normal, social adult life.
To prepare students to identify, protect, and advance their legitimate self-interests.
To prepare students to recognize their social and legal responsibilities.
By the end of their formal education, to develop:
Cognitive skill knowledge that allows them to interact with government agencies in such a way as to generally protect and/or advance their self-interests,
Cognitive skills that allow them to interact in a rational fashion,
Cognitive knowledge of the responsibilities society legitimately expects them to meet, and
Willingness to engage in public discussion that relates to the issues inherent with controversial decision areas where government-citizen interactions are concerned, and moral values are considered.
