Harvard deans urge renewing civic education | Harvard Magazine Mar-Apr 2012 - 0 views
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What strikes us about these passages is not their antiquity, but their wisdom. Today, many Americans have lost pride in their government. At a time when universities trumpet their place in the world—and within Facebook—but say little about their place in the Republic, these calls to educate citizens who will sustain the nation have new and vital meaning. It is time to reimagine higher education’s civic mission.
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They are positioned not only to foster innovation, which is essential to national prosperity, but also to teach the public responsibilities associated with invention and entrepreneurship.
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“A Republic, if you can keep it,” as Benjamin Franklin described our form of government, will not persist through momentum alone.
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We see civic education as the cultivation of knowledge and traits that sustain democratic self-governance. The synergistic components of civic education in American colleges and universities are a tripod of intellect, morality, and action, all grounded in a knowledge base of American history and constitutional principles.
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Civic education cannot flourish if intellect is privileged over morality and action, as is usual today.
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As science either marginalized or helped transform other subjects, citizens’ responsibilities for the public good were squeezed out of the mission of higher education. Moral philosophy became a marginal
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Its antiauthoritarian agenda and tactics notwithstanding, the student movement sought to reassert the educational importance of common values and social mission.
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A student volunteering at a soup kitchen…very much enjoyed the experience and felt that it had made him a better person. Without thinking through the implications of his statement, he said, “I hope it is still around when my children are in college, so they can work here, too.”Finding a Way Forward
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Instead of a prescription, we offer a framework for conversation about the intertwined roles of intellect, morality, and action.
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Action. Civic learning is about the effect of human decisions on other people and on society at large.