“Historically”.

A little meditation on civics education.

My five mostly-homeschooled kids’ high school graduation dates will in the end range from 2018 to 2032.

For the fourth time I’m beginning to teach (really guide a kid through) U.S. civics. Often, even if I plan to supplement with multimedia material, extra books, etc., I like to have a standard high school text as a spine, to make sure I don’t leave anything out inadvertently. The first time I did it, it was a fairly harried year, so I wound up using the textbook’s readings and exercises pretty closely.

That suited us fine since we agreed that really the most important part of the high school course in civics was to learn the fundamentals: how the government is structured, which levels are responsible for what, what are your rights under the law, that kind of thing. Obviously there’s plenty of opportunity to highlight specific areas of interest along the way (I spent extra time on Supreme Court cases and rights of the accused, and one class period on the legal history that culminated in the protection of families’ rights to home education*) but if you can find a relatively no-nonsense textbook, especially if you supplement where needed, it’s probably going to be fine.

Do pay attention to the tone of the textbooks you use, as well as the sides they take or don’t take, and make sure you can work with them according to your values (remembering that no text is perfect and that bringing in other points of view which add context or even contradict the text is itself a good lesson in how to read critically). I don’t particularly like them soaked in patriotism; I sought a politically neutral tone for the spine itself, but I never minded if it rang with a little optimism that the arc of history would bend toward justice and that the constitutional order applied in good faith would generally lead us in the right direction if we remained vigilant.

In 2016, I used the 2008 version of Magruder’s American Government (because all of its supporting materials were abundantly and cheaply available in the used textbook market). I remember making handouts that brought some sections up to date: the demographics of Congress, and a list of landmark Supreme Court cases that had happened in the intervening years. This was a well-designed textbook and I kept my copies; I still make handouts from it, using a feature that summarizes individual Supreme Court cases and encourages predicting how the court ruled.

Later I got the 2016 edition (do not recommend as the book was organized weirdly and the teacher’s edition was unhelpful), and this year I am mostly using 2023’s edition.

+ + +

The Magruder’s franchise updates the textbooks every year or two, which is economically convenient if you are selling to schools, but also not unreasonable considering how frequently important things might go out of date. Still, from year to year most of the text is exactly the same. The changes can be interesting. Here’s one from the section on political parties.

2008:

“Political parties… usually soften the impact of extremists at both ends of the political spectrum”

2016:

“Political parties…are very often successful in their attempts to soften the impact of extremists at both ends of the political spectrum”

2023:

“Historically, [political parties] have been successful in their attempts to soften the impact of extremists at both ends of the political spectrum”

I can’t help but notice that we’ve moved from present tense to present perfect tense.

Anyway. I’ve added a few goals to the learning this year beyond the fundamentals—but at the same time, commitment to the fundamentals seems more important than ever before, and the prerequisite is learning them.