civics education
Apr. 24th, 2025 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacA few days ago, one whom I read was asking for childhood experiences in being educated in US civics. Generating a response caused memory to bring up some things I had half-forgotten:
I was educated in California, but that was all more than 50 years ago. I do not remember what kind of civics education we got in elementary school, but I do remember the lineup of specific classes after that. We had a dedicated civics class in 8th grade, I was taught it by one of the school's best teachers, and it went into a lot of detail, with a lot of informal argument on civics principles led by the teacher. One specific nugget I remember from this class was students doing a table reading of a skit from the textbook depicting Gen. Scott offering Col. Lee command of the Union Army. So this got into some pretty esoteric historical detail. I also remember a polemic in the textbook describing a pure libertarian government and asking, is this really want you'd want? (And this was a decade before the heyday of the Libertarian Party.)
Which in turn reminds me that, the same year in English class, we read the play Inherit the Wind. Again a full table reading, with the entire class participating, and also much discussion of the content.
So we were well drilled in civics before high school. In high school itself, graduation requirements included 1) a full-year course in US history; 2) a half-year course in US civics. No specific grade level attached, though I think most took these in their last two years, if only because they were more mature and better able to handle them. (This was one of the few, if not the only, state graduation requirements. Most of my attention in this matter was focused on meeting requirements for eligibility for admission to the University of California, which were stricter.)
I did not take these classes; I took the 2-year AP US history course, which was deemed to cover both topics. This was 11th-12th grade. We had an excellent teacher, one of the two best I ever had, who rambled his way from the War of Independence down to about the Truman administration before we ran out of time (and remember this was during the Nixon administration). It covered all sorts of topics in political-economic history (rather less on social history). Highlights included an unrehearsed classroom debate between the teacher and the school principal over the merits of the Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian principles of government, and a whole unit on immigration settlement of the Northern Plains.
There was no textbook; our reading was individually directed by the teacher. Most of mine went to the two major research papers I wrote in this class. These were college-level papers, and this is where I learned how to write one. We chose our own topics in consultation with the teacher, and one of mine was on a historical civics topic: the writing of California's first state constitution. I did most of the research for that one in the Stanford University library, which I had access to as family of an adjunct professor.
At the end of our second year, the teacher selected three of his best students and entered us in the AP US History exam. We all got 5, the best grade.
I felt really well equipped by high school to handle the work of reading history at a major university, UC Berkeley. Rather to my surprise, because I'd been warned repeatedly how tough college would be, especially at that level, I found my courses fun and rather easy.
I was educated in California, but that was all more than 50 years ago. I do not remember what kind of civics education we got in elementary school, but I do remember the lineup of specific classes after that. We had a dedicated civics class in 8th grade, I was taught it by one of the school's best teachers, and it went into a lot of detail, with a lot of informal argument on civics principles led by the teacher. One specific nugget I remember from this class was students doing a table reading of a skit from the textbook depicting Gen. Scott offering Col. Lee command of the Union Army. So this got into some pretty esoteric historical detail. I also remember a polemic in the textbook describing a pure libertarian government and asking, is this really want you'd want? (And this was a decade before the heyday of the Libertarian Party.)
Which in turn reminds me that, the same year in English class, we read the play Inherit the Wind. Again a full table reading, with the entire class participating, and also much discussion of the content.
So we were well drilled in civics before high school. In high school itself, graduation requirements included 1) a full-year course in US history; 2) a half-year course in US civics. No specific grade level attached, though I think most took these in their last two years, if only because they were more mature and better able to handle them. (This was one of the few, if not the only, state graduation requirements. Most of my attention in this matter was focused on meeting requirements for eligibility for admission to the University of California, which were stricter.)
I did not take these classes; I took the 2-year AP US history course, which was deemed to cover both topics. This was 11th-12th grade. We had an excellent teacher, one of the two best I ever had, who rambled his way from the War of Independence down to about the Truman administration before we ran out of time (and remember this was during the Nixon administration). It covered all sorts of topics in political-economic history (rather less on social history). Highlights included an unrehearsed classroom debate between the teacher and the school principal over the merits of the Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian principles of government, and a whole unit on immigration settlement of the Northern Plains.
There was no textbook; our reading was individually directed by the teacher. Most of mine went to the two major research papers I wrote in this class. These were college-level papers, and this is where I learned how to write one. We chose our own topics in consultation with the teacher, and one of mine was on a historical civics topic: the writing of California's first state constitution. I did most of the research for that one in the Stanford University library, which I had access to as family of an adjunct professor.
At the end of our second year, the teacher selected three of his best students and entered us in the AP US History exam. We all got 5, the best grade.
I felt really well equipped by high school to handle the work of reading history at a major university, UC Berkeley. Rather to my surprise, because I'd been warned repeatedly how tough college would be, especially at that level, I found my courses fun and rather easy.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-24 08:30 pm (UTC)I do not quite remember my elementary school education in this area, other than having to learn and explain the US Constitution. I suspect that I know it better than most of people serving in the current Congress, and certainly better than the leadership of The Regime, who consider the Constitution to be an annoyance, I suspect.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-24 08:49 pm (UTC)1) This was 1849, and the delegates were mostly very recent immigrants. Six months made you an old-timer.
2) They borrowed a lot from other recent state constitutions.
3) They argued over where the state's boundary should go: along the top of the Sierras or including some or all of the desert to the east. Eventually they chose an artificial line just east of the Sierras because at least they knew where it was, but the diagonal part turned out to be almost impossible to survey.
4) One argument led to a delegate exclaiming "Let us adjourn sine die! We have done enough of mischief!" (This is recorded in the official proceedings.)
no subject
Date: 2025-04-24 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-24 11:59 pm (UTC)1) That the boundary pivot was in the middle of Tahoe didn't help, but surveying a diagonal line was tough enough anyway, and for some years there was uncertainty, especially around the Esmeralda County area, where exactly the state border ran. When it was resurveyed, around 1880 I think, some people found themselves living in a different state.
2) The charter creating Nevada gave it the area of Modoc and Lassen counties, on condition that California agreed (consent constitutionally required). But CA didn't agree. However, Nevada had jumped the gun by creating Roop County, thus the rump panhandle later attached to Washoe for lack of anything else to do with it.
Wikipedia says this was also a result of surveying uncertainty, and that may have had something to do with it, but the secession was a provision.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-25 12:09 am (UTC)When I see episodes of Bonanza it looks roughly like the Bonanza Ranch covered most of what would have been Ormsby County and is today's Carson City. (I know it's not an exactly match.) When we picked up Linda D. to take her to Tonopah for one of our Westercon 74 meetings, we deliberately drove south on US-395 (the older version) so we could go through that area between Reno and Carson City, because we think it's a nicer drive than out to Fernley and south on US-95A.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-24 08:52 pm (UTC)The convention was held in Monterey, which was the old Mexican capital (the building is still standing, and is visitable). But it didn't have enough accommodation, so they wanted to put the permanent capital somewhere else. The delegates from San Jose said they had enough accommodations, so it got the honor. But when the legislature met there it turned out those delegates had been shady with the truth, so the capital went hopping around for a few years.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-26 03:50 am (UTC)