We ask a lot of our teachers, don't we? Especially high school teachers. They teach children who morph into "young adults" right before their eyes. Questions about the studies become more profound. Children will pester and probe with "why?" Teenagers will start asking "why not?" (A personal favorite, shared with my high school buddies and tolerated by an empathetic chemistry teacher who eventually clamped down when a rogue chemical experiment briefly obliterated the school's educational decorum. The only damage was to pride, and Mr. E's disciplinary action was appropriate. Provocative questions can take you to unexpected and enlightening places.)
I think this becomes especially challenging in social studies or civics classes. History, governance, social structures and how accepting individual responsibilities contributes to the community are topics that are wide open for interpretations and challenges. Those of us who found ourselves at this age during the 1960s and '70s were fond of repelling anything we considered to be intrusive by saying "Stay out of my space!" If this reminds you of. . .you, well, good.
Public education is expected to explain why a democratic form of government provides the best living environment for the individual. A successful democratic government responds to the will of the majority to solve social problems, maintain public safety, avoid harm, and achieve progress in making the country better in the future. Civics and social studies courses take the lead in delivering on that learning experience.
Part of the educator's job is to inform students on how the U.S. Constitution is the basic national law for American governance. It has been amended, interpreted, bent and massaged for over 230 years. When this has worked well it has been due at least in part to the fact that the Constitution's authors, and the succeeding congressional representatives, presidents and federal justices, have held to a common understanding of the country's history and how that history provides guidance towards a better future.
Now we see that recent Supreme Court decisions (and other events) illustrate a gradual but striking loss of the common understanding of American history. I think that teen students will pick up on this and want to learn what has changed or been lost, why that has happened, and how it will affect them for the rest of their lives.
Let's take a look at what might merit youthful attention, and conjure up some ideas on where that could lead.
This year's SCOTUS decisions encompassing abortion (also directly affecting personal privacy), gun control and religion seem to me to be intensely personal to the youth, perhaps even more so than with their elders. The majority opinions in these decisions depend upon historical citations whose anecdotal evidence is of the sort that would be unconvincing in high school debate competitions. (I know this from long-ago personal experience.)
Inquisitive students will go farther on this. For example, if the 9th Amendment invites the discovery and adoption of individual rights beyond those already identified -- and it does -- why should a right to abortion and to the privacy of that decision not be eligible to be recognized as constitutional? Suppose a girl asks that question and finds that the anti-abortion answer is founded on religious belief; wouldn't you expect her to counter that with "Why should somebody else's religion be imposed on me?" I would.
Regulation of private gun ownership and of the availability of certain types of firearms is a real attention-getter for students. Much gun-related carnage happens in places frequented by teenagers, such as schools, shopping centers and crowded events. Teachers will be asked why semi-automatic firearms are so readily available even though they are capable of causing far more death and injury than were 18th century cannons, the possession and use of which were reserved for national defense? Why prefer a demonstrably dangerous individual right at the expense of general public safety when there is a history of limiting the individual's right so as to provide a public benefit?
As for religion, students will learn that one of the foundational reasons for the nation was to escape the coercion and destructive conflicts of a state-sponsored religion. A public school coach or other employee is by definition part of the state or local government. If that employee is enabled -- as SCOTUS has now done -- to publicly display religious practices while on duty, isn't that a type of inherent state coercion, and won't it be seen by students as invading their individual space? And what about U.S. history during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries showing a continual national trend towards the greater separation of church and state?
Yes, I'm putting ducks in a row. But these ducks are real, not imaginary. We all can remember enough of our youth to know that we and others around us were capable of challenging the adult status quo. As parents and friends of parents we know that today's and tomorrow's teens are well prepared to have these discussions, and they have the intentions of doing so.
The SCOTUS decisions overviewed here result in remarkable state-enabled and state supported intrusions into a person's space around personal and private decisions, personal safety and freedom from religious coercion. I think this will be an underlying motivation for thoughtful student confrontations with their civics and social studies teachers.
Do we want today's students to become tomorrow's engaged adults and national leaders? We say that we do, but for that to happen teachers, parents and communities ought to be prepared to experience a type and intensity of student activism that has been seen only rarely since the civil rights and anti-war protests of the 1960s and early 1970s.
Support your local social studies teachers. They will be appreciative, the students will be better prepared to assume and fulfill adult responsibilities, and we will end up with a more successful and better democracy.
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