How did you learn about your government? Civics classes? Reading on your own? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Cynthetiq · 06-09-2008, 07:00 AM

Quote:

View: Former Justice Promotes Web-Based Civics Lessons
Source: Nytimes
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Former Justice Promotes Web-Based Civics Lessons
June 9, 2008
Former Justice Promotes Web-Based Civics Lessons
By SETH SCHIESEL
Sandra Day O’Connor, the former Supreme Court justice, began her remarks at the Games for Change conference in New York by saying aloud what the few hundred people in the audience were already thinking.

“If someone had told me when I retired from the Supreme Court about a couple of years ago that I would be speaking at a conference about digital games, I would have been very skeptical, maybe thinking you had one drink too many,” she said to laughter Wednesday in an auditorium downtown at Parsons the New School for Design.

Yet there she was, a notable figure in modern history, at once engaging and imposing as she explained why she had embraced the Internet and interactive digital media as an essential tool for preserving American democracy. In cooperation with Georgetown University Law Center and Arizona State University, Justice O’Connor is helping develop a Web site and interactive civics curriculum for seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade students called Our Courts (www.ourcourts.org). The initial major elements of the site are scheduled to become available this fall.

Since retiring from the bench in 2006, Justice O’Connor, 78, has spoken forcefully and often about the dangers posed by efforts to politicize the judiciary. Her thoughts are well known to legal scholars. With Our Courts she hopes to foster a deeper understanding of American government among schoolchildren. The site will have two parts, an explicitly educational component for use in schools and a more entertainment-oriented module that will more closely resemble games. As one would expect from such a significant jurist, she made a neat case.

“In recent years I have become increasingly concerned about vitriolic attacks by some members of Congress and some members of state legislatures and various private interest groups on judges,” she said in her speech. “We hear a great deal about judges who are activists, godless secular humanists trying to impose their will on the rest of us. I always thought an activist judge was one who got up in the morning and went to work.”

She said she embarked on this campaign after a conference she and Justice Stephen G. Breyer convened in 2006 on the state of the judiciary.

“The overwhelming consensus coming out of that conference was that public education is the only long-term solution to preserving an independent judiciary and, more importantly, to preserving a robust constitutional democracy,” she said. “The better educated our citizens are, the better equipped they will be to preserve the system of government we have. And we have to start with the education of our nation’s young people. Knowledge about our government is not handed down through the gene pool. Every generation has to learn it, and we have some work to do.”

Justice O’Connor said that most citizens know very little about their government. “Two-thirds of Americans know at least one of the judges on the Fox TV show ‘American Idol,’ but less than 1 in 10 can name the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court,” she said.

And for that she did not lay responsibility solely at the feet of popular culture.

“One unintended effect of the No Child Left Behind Act, which is intended to help fund teaching of science and math to young people, is that it has effectively squeezed out civics education because there is no testing for that anymore and no funding for that,” she said. “And at least half of the states no longer make the teaching of civics and government a requirement for high school graduation. This leaves a huge gap, and we can’t forget that the primary purpose of public schools in America has always been to help produce citizens who have the knowledge and the skills and the values to sustain our republic as a nation, our democratic form of government.”

Enter the Internet. Justice O’Connor said she didn’t play games and was hardly a computer expert. But she added that she had seen in her children and especially her grandchildren how involving interactive media can be and noted that interactive education can in some ways be more effective than traditional methods.

“We’ll have them arguing real issues, real legal issues, against the computer and against each other,” she said. One of the first interactive exercises in the Our Courts program, she said, would take up First Amendment issues involving the ability of public schools to censor students’ speech, as in student newspapers or on T-shirts.

“I believe that when we learn something, a principle or concept, by doing, by having it happen to us, which you can do by that medium of a computer, and you exercise it and you make an argument and you learn, ‘Oh yes, that’s an argument that prevails,’ you learn by doing.”

That’s an argument even the most hardened game geek would approve.

I'm a firm believer in knowing the rules and framework of everything. This is how it works, why it works, etc. I find it important so that I know what my requirements are to work within the system, and not work outside of it. It is also important for me to understand what the expecations and role I'm supposed to have.

I had Civics class in my sophomore year in HS. I am not sure if it was 1 semester or a whole year, but we went over in detail the entire US Constitution and the rest of the kinds of governments, pros and cons of each.

I do applaud this effort and understand that there is some
How did you learn about your government? Did you have a civics class? Did just learn it reading via the internet or news?

snowy · 06-09-2008, 07:24 AM

My dad was a social studies teacher back in the day, and majored in social studies education during his undergrad, so growing up we were always learning about how the government works, as well as its history. He encouraged us to read about these sorts of things, and we always talked about current events and the forces that shaped them from the past. When I took "People and Politics" my senior year of high school I was definitely more prepared than most of my peers.

Tully Mars · 06-09-2008, 07:45 AM

My dad too. He worked for the Oregon Treasury Dept. all my life. He would talk endlessly, well seemingly endlessly when I was a kid, about government and how it worked. I remember parliamentary procedure coming up in a jr. high class. I never read any of the chapter, simply took the test. Turns out dad knew his stuff and I passed the test with ease.

lotsofmagnets · 06-09-2008, 08:03 AM

i think i jusy soaked in bits and pieces from many sources round me. i don´t think someone sat down and explained it to me nor did we have a class for such in school

Willravel · 06-09-2008, 08:31 AM

Most of it has come from news sources—magazine, newspaper, online, TV—, though occasionally I do discuss civics with friends.

Also, TFP.

The_Jazz · 06-09-2008, 08:38 AM

Classes. Lots and lots of classes, starting with American Government in 7th grade. At the same time (or close enough) I got my Citizenship in the Nation merit badge in Boy Scouts.

And in college, I took Constitutional History and Constitutional Law, each for a full year.

And I also watched Schoolhouse Rocks and know the meaning of BOR's old avatar.

Willravel · 06-09-2008, 08:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

And I also watched Schoolhouse Rocks and know the meaning of BOR's old avatar.

He's just a bill, yes he's only a bill....

levite · 06-09-2008, 09:08 AM

I was given kids' histories and civics books when I was little, and then got interested on my own. I took a government and civics class in high school, but by then I had already read the constitution, the declaration of independence, the great political speeches of American history, and some of the classic histories of the U.S. I did a lot of reading on my own-- still do-- and I did take a couple of classes in American political history and constitutional law and so forth when I was in college.

Schoolhouse Rock did help, though...taught me the Preamble by heart....

Bill O'Rights · 06-09-2008, 09:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

And I also watched Schoolhouse Rocks and know the meaning of BOR's old avatar.

How did this help you with civics?

The_Jazz · 06-09-2008, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill O'Rights

How did this help you with civics?

If you don't know, you're too old.

uncle phil · 06-09-2008, 10:46 AM

to answer the OPs question:

beginning in 5th grade - discovering the new world; from then on, history, government, and civics throughout junior high school and high school...

BA in political science/history...

employment in the public sector for 30+ years...

(anybody remember ST. DAPIAC L. HEW?)

Punk.of.Ages · 06-09-2008, 11:15 AM

I'm a punk. I can't rebel, properly, against something I don't understand, so I have put a lot of time into learning about the government. A small deal of my learning was done in school. Mainly, middle school years. That's where I learned the basics of how our system's supposed to work. I dropped out of high school too early to really take any governmental classes. A larger percentage comes from sources that don't depend on the government, and therefore don't lie to you. Like some places on the internet, though, with the internet, you have to take everything with a grain of salt. I think most of it comes from those around me who are more versed in how it works than myself, though.

ottopilot · 06-09-2008, 05:33 PM

Some would believe that my implant is receiving updates directly from Rush Limbaugh and the RNC as I type.

Parents, school, college, books, news, internet, etc.

ASU2003 · 06-09-2008, 05:49 PM

Which government? We covered the US government in class for about 1/2 - 1 month.

I read the Communist Manifesto secretly in the library, and while I didn't agree with all of it, the economic side could of been better implemented. I also looked at Latin America from a poor person's perspective and figured out why Che thought it would be better than letting US corporations take over all the national resources and big businesses down there. But the problem with all communist countries is that they have a dictatorship instead of a true communist society where nobody has any power unless the majority of people rule on an issue.

I found out about Libertarians, Greens and (peaceful, no government) Anarchists anonymously on the internet.

I wish they would teach more than the two party ideas in school and in a non-biased fashion.

Grasshopper Green · 06-11-2008, 07:29 PM

I learned a little bit in my American History classes in school, but I've learned most of what I know from my dad. He's keenly interested in politics and how the government works and always has an answer for my question.

Baraka_Guru · 06-11-2008, 07:54 PM

I learned bits and pieces throughout K-12. The most I learned was in a full college course cryptically entitled "Canadian Government." It was one of my favourites. It was taught by this sixtysomething, ex-hippie, raging Liberal. A very funny guy who made the material interesting.

One of my favourite "take aways": A prime minister with a majority government wields more power over their country than any American president does over theirs. Yet, if they make a false step, it's all over. How's that for politics?

Willravel · 06-11-2008, 08:00 PM

I'd love to take a Canadian Government class.

girldetective · 06-12-2008, 05:29 AM

Just like everyone's favorite uncle above, the world opened up to me in fifth grade under Ms. Parkinson's guidance. It was India that piqued my interest then and I molded a clay cow, painted it black, and painted colorful flowers as a necklace. It did not win any awards. From then on though I was hooked. Before then I was aware of the world through National Geographic and their maps. It was a favorite pasttime of mine to gather the maps, spread them out, and peruse them at length. I did this regularly, usually on Saturday mornings or Sunday afternoons. If something struck me as interesting I would then get a library book on it when my mom took me for my weekly trip. Now that I think about it, most of my world knowledge came first from maps or charts.

Fifth grade was also when we started learning a little bit about world cultures, religions, governments, social systems, and so forth. It snowballed from there through the rest of school. In addition, there were books, newspapers, dinner conversations, and so forth. Being the youngest in the family, sometimes I had a tendency to be left out but there were those moments when someone took pity and explained to me so that I had a clue.

06-09-2008, 07:24 AM	#2 (permalink)
snowy Kick Ass Kunoichi Location: Oregon	My dad was a social studies teacher back in the day, and majored in social studies education during his undergrad, so growing up we were always learning about how the government works, as well as its history. He encouraged us to read about these sorts of things, and we always talked about current events and the forces that shaped them from the past. When I took "People and Politics" my senior year of high school I was definitely more prepared than most of my peers. __________________ If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

06-09-2008, 07:45 AM	#3 (permalink)
Tully Mars Living in a Warmer Insanity Super Moderator Location: Yucatan, Mexico	My dad too. He worked for the Oregon Treasury Dept. all my life. He would talk endlessly, well seemingly endlessly when I was a kid, about government and how it worked. I remember parliamentary procedure coming up in a jr. high class. I never read any of the chapter, simply took the test. Turns out dad knew his stuff and I passed the test with ease. __________________ I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

06-09-2008, 08:03 AM	#4 (permalink)
lotsofmagnets Upright Location: reykjavík, iceland	i think i jusy soaked in bits and pieces from many sources round me. i don´t think someone sat down and explained it to me nor did we have a class for such in school __________________ mother nature made the aeroplane, and the submarine sandwich, with the steady hands and dead eye of a remarkable sculptor. she shed her mountain turning training wheels, for the convenience of the moving sidewalk, that delivers the magnetic monkey children through the mouth of impossible calendar clock, into the devil's manhole cauldron. physics of a bicycle, isn't it remarkable?

06-09-2008, 08:38 AM	#6 (permalink)
The_Jazz Asshole Administrator Location: Chicago	Classes. Lots and lots of classes, starting with American Government in 7th grade. At the same time (or close enough) I got my Citizenship in the Nation merit badge in Boy Scouts. And in college, I took Constitutional History and Constitutional Law, each for a full year. And I also watched Schoolhouse Rocks and know the meaning of BOR's old avatar. __________________ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

06-09-2008, 09:08 AM	#8 (permalink)
levite Minion of Joss Location: The Windy City	I was given kids' histories and civics books when I was little, and then got interested on my own. I took a government and civics class in high school, but by then I had already read the constitution, the declaration of independence, the great political speeches of American history, and some of the classic histories of the U.S. I did a lot of reading on my own-- still do-- and I did take a couple of classes in American political history and constitutional law and so forth when I was in college. Schoolhouse Rock did help, though...taught me the Preamble by heart.... __________________ Dull sublunary lovers love, Whose soul is sense, cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove That thing which elemented it. (From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)

06-09-2008, 08:31 AM	#5 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Most of it has come from news sources—magazine, newspaper, online, TV—, though occasionally I do discuss civics with friends. Also, TFP.

06-09-2008, 10:46 AM	#11 (permalink)
uncle phil comfortably numb... Super Moderator Location: upstate	to answer the OPs question: beginning in 5th grade - discovering the new world; from then on, history, government, and civics throughout junior high school and high school... BA in political science/history... employment in the public sector for 30+ years... (anybody remember ST. DAPIAC L. HEW?) __________________ "We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done." - Robert S. McNamara ----------------------------------------- "We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches... We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles." - Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message" ----------------------------------------- never wrestle with a pig. you both get dirty; the pig likes it. Last edited by uncle phil; 06-09-2008 at 10:58 AM..

06-09-2008, 11:15 AM	#12 (permalink)
Punk.of.Ages Forming Location: ....a state of pure inebriation.	I'm a punk. I can't rebel, properly, against something I don't understand, so I have put a lot of time into learning about the government. A small deal of my learning was done in school. Mainly, middle school years. That's where I learned the basics of how our system's supposed to work. I dropped out of high school too early to really take any governmental classes. A larger percentage comes from sources that don't depend on the government, and therefore don't lie to you. Like some places on the internet, though, with the internet, you have to take everything with a grain of salt. I think most of it comes from those around me who are more versed in how it works than myself, though. __________________ "The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion..." - Henry Steel Commager "Punk rock music is great music played by really bad, drunk musicians." -Fat Mike

06-09-2008, 05:33 PM	#13 (permalink)
ottopilot let me be clear Location: Waddy Peytona	Some would believe that my implant is receiving updates directly from Rush Limbaugh and the RNC as I type. Parents, school, college, books, news, internet, etc.

06-09-2008, 05:49 PM	#14 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	Which government? We covered the US government in class for about 1/2 - 1 month. I read the Communist Manifesto secretly in the library, and while I didn't agree with all of it, the economic side could of been better implemented. I also looked at Latin America from a poor person's perspective and figured out why Che thought it would be better than letting US corporations take over all the national resources and big businesses down there. But the problem with all communist countries is that they have a dictatorship instead of a true communist society where nobody has any power unless the majority of people rule on an issue. I found out about Libertarians, Greens and (peaceful, no government) Anarchists anonymously on the internet. I wish they would teach more than the two party ideas in school and in a non-biased fashion.

06-11-2008, 07:29 PM	#15 (permalink)
Grasshopper Green ...is a comical chap Location: Where morons reign supreme	I learned a little bit in my American History classes in school, but I've learned most of what I know from my dad. He's keenly interested in politics and how the government works and always has an answer for my question. __________________ "They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings; steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king" Formerly Medusa

06-11-2008, 07:54 PM	#16 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	I learned bits and pieces throughout K-12. The most I learned was in a full college course cryptically entitled "Canadian Government." It was one of my favourites. It was taught by this sixtysomething, ex-hippie, raging Liberal. A very funny guy who made the material interesting. One of my favourite "take aways": A prime minister with a majority government wields more power over their country than any American president does over theirs. Yet, if they make a false step, it's all over. How's that for politics? __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

06-11-2008, 08:00 PM	#17 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	I'd love to take a Canadian Government class.

06-12-2008, 05:29 AM	#18 (permalink)
girldetective sufferable	Just like everyone's favorite uncle above, the world opened up to me in fifth grade under Ms. Parkinson's guidance. It was India that piqued my interest then and I molded a clay cow, painted it black, and painted colorful flowers as a necklace. It did not win any awards. From then on though I was hooked. Before then I was aware of the world through National Geographic and their maps. It was a favorite pasttime of mine to gather the maps, spread them out, and peruse them at length. I did this regularly, usually on Saturday mornings or Sunday afternoons. If something struck me as interesting I would then get a library book on it when my mom took me for my weekly trip. Now that I think about it, most of my world knowledge came first from maps or charts. Fifth grade was also when we started learning a little bit about world cultures, religions, governments, social systems, and so forth. It snowballed from there through the rest of school. In addition, there were books, newspapers, dinner conversations, and so forth. Being the youngest in the family, sometimes I had a tendency to be left out but there were those moments when someone took pity and explained to me so that I had a clue. __________________ As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons...be cheerful; strive for happiness - Desiderata Last edited by girldetective; 06-12-2008 at 05:32 AM..