A new educational framework trades lessons on good citizenship for “lived experience.”
Amid a national push for civics education, many would-be civics reformers hope to make race a central focus. Some of the most prominent civics-reform nonprofits tout a “Lived Civics” framework, either as a helpful supplemental resource or as an explicit feature. Regardless of how it’s used, Lived Civics would teach students not good citizenship but its opposite.
According to “Let’s Go There,” a document widely cited by civics-reform nonprofits, the Lived Civics approach holds “that concepts such as race, ethnicity, identity and lived experience must be central anchors of civic education.” The document asserts that merely devoting part of the curriculum to lessons about race and racism is insufficient, even if those lessons borrow from the most popular proponents of “antiracism.” “Rather than a discrete unit, lesson, or series of activities that are layered on top of a traditional civics curriculum,” the authors explain, “a Lived Civics curriculum is based on the premise that race, identity and lived experiences are of central importance and are a critical lens through which the content of all civics course material is explored.”
The biggest players in civics education today endorse a pedagogy that
explicitly racializes the curriculum. Armed now with what they consider a
moral imperative, these organizations are lobbying for legislation that
would fund this agenda. Responsible citizens should hope that they
fail...........To Read More....
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