John Saltmarsh on "Question of the Year"
What knowledge or skills will students need most to be effective citizens of our world in the future?
I recently wrote an article that appeared in the magazine Liberal Education in which I made the case (it was more accurately an impassioned plea) that service-learning had been effectively advanced over the past decade or more as an effective pedagogy for teaching the course content in a wide range of disciplines. I went on to say that while service-learning had emerged as an effective and powerful method for engaged learning, it had not lived up to its promise of being used to teach civic learning outcomes, or what I refer to as the knowledge, skills and values necessary to participate as engaged, democratic citizens. This was consistent with recently expressed concerns by those like Ira Harkavy at the University of Pennsylvania that service-learning suffered from a certain reductionism in that it was being seen as serving the needs of the disciplines (course content) and not the higher, civic purposes of higher education.
This slouching toward reductionism has resulted in little attention being paid to using service-learning to teach the civic dimensions of a discipline or to foster the specific civic learning outcomes that students were to achieve in addition to mastering the course concepts. An analysis of service-learning syllabi reveals that some of the most exemplary curricular models of service-learning focus on the technical aspects of a discipline, almost to the exclusion of its civic dimensions. While there is evidence of faculty success in adapting service learning to teach course content, there is little evidence of faculty success in focusing attention on civic learning. For everything I have just said in this paragraph, it applies to all our teaching methodologies, not just service-learning. It just happens that I was writing about service-learning, but take out the words “service-learning” and the argument still applies.
So my answer to the question of the year is that what students need to be effective citizens of the world is to have civic learning outcomes as part of their education across the disciplines. Education needs to incorporate the civic dimensions of the disciplines and educators need to design learning outcomes for students to achieve those outcomes.
Vital and dynamic, civic learning is rooted in respect for community-based knowledge, grounded in experiential and reflective modes of teaching and learning, aimed at active participation in American democracy, and aligned with institutional change efforts to improve student learning. It is important to recognize that civic learning will be defined differently depending upon disciplinary perspective, the identity and mission of the institution, the academic strengths on campus, and the unique social environment of the local communities. Civic learning outcomes need to be thoughtfully constructed and carefully assessed if there is a serious interest in knowing that students are learning the knowledge, skills, and values for active, engaged civic participation.
In this context, civic learning includes knowledge—historical, political, and civic knowledge that arises from both academic and community sources; skills—critical thinking, communication, public problem solving, civic judgment, civic imagination and creativity, collective action, coalition building, organizational analysis; and values—justice, inclusion, and participation.
Civic knowledge
The knowledge necessary for effective civic participation includes, but is not limited to, traditional notions of “civics”—including the study of structures and processes of government and the obligations of citizenship. It also includes, but is not limited to, the historical foundations of the country and the emergence of American democracy. This is knowledge that can be learned in the classroom through the study of texts, but it is richer and more vital when it is integrated into the life of a community. Emphasis on the community-based aspect of civic knowledge is consistent with the formulation provided by the U.S. Department of Education (Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education 2003):
A good understanding of the democratic principles and institutions embodied in our history, government, and law provide the foundation for civic engagement and commitment, but the classroom alone is not enough. Research shows that students are more likely to have a sense of social responsibility, more likely to commit to addressing community or social problems in their adult lives as workers and citizens, and more likely to demonstrate political efficacy when they engage in structured, conscious reflection on experience in the larger community.
A key element of civic knowledge is historical knowledge that contextualizes community-based experiences such that past events provide a context and foundation for present community-based problem solving. Every community has a rich and unique history that fundamentally shapes the present social environment. This history also shapes current politics in the community, drawing upon a definition of politics, broadly conceived, what Harry Boyte refers to as “the way a society as a whole negotiates, argues about, and understands its past and creates its present and future.” As such, an understanding of the community’s history is essential to effectively participating in it as well as effectively shaping its future. Further, it is important to conceive of civic knowledge as knowledge that emerges from community settings. Civic knowledge, in this framework, emphasizes the role that the community, in all of its complexity, plays in shaping student learning. Additionally, every discipline and profession has a history that is unique to its particular intellectual community and social purpose. That history contextualizes the profession and allows for exploration of its public and social dimensions.
Civic skills
Richard Battistoni’s Civic Engagement Across the Curriculum (2002) is perhaps the best resource available for framing a civic skills component for curricula in a variety of disciplines. In it, Battistoni draws on multiple disciplinary perspectives to explore a range of civic skills that can be incorporated into courses. In some ways, the skills he addresses are traditional liberal learning outcomes, but they are translated into a public context. For example, critical thinking skills are a widely expected outcome in liberal education. In Battistoni’s framework, those skills are shaped by the challenges that community-based experiences place on student’s cognitive assumptions; “students’ ability to analyze critically is enhanced by confronting ideas and theories with the actual realities in the world surrounding them.” Similarly, Battistoni reframes communications skills, a foundational liberal learning outcome, as skills that are “essential to effective civic participation and to the values of civility and public deliberation.” He employs this “translation” of traditional liberal learning outcomes into learning outcomes with a civic dimension to suggest a range of civic skills that include public problem solving, civic judgment, civic imagination and creativity, collective action, community/coalition building, and organizational analysis.
Civic values
While the “Education question of the year” asks about knowledge or skills and not about values, I think that John Chaffee is right to put values back into the conversation. We in higher education have a tendency to avoid values and even when we do acknowledge them as a legitimate education outcome, we employ rhetoric of “attitudes” or “dispositions.” There is a tendency to confuse the teaching of private values that build character with the teaching of public values that build community. It is the later that I am arguing for here. Public values are an essential element of effective global citizenship. Articulating civic values suggests that it is legitimate to frame a discussion of values around “democratic values.” As presented here, key democratic values are participation, justice, and inclusion. The point is that faculty, based on their disciplinary contexts, and campuses, based on their unique social, historical, and community contexts, will frame the values of democracy somewhat differently. At the same time, a focus on democratic values suggests that there is, fundamentally, a set of values essential to a functioning democracy that can be widely agreed upon and shared.
The work ahead is to incorporate civic learning outcomes into all the disciplines and to design courses and employ pedagogies that are appropriate to achieving the learning outcomes we seek. There is terrific work being done on enhancing civic learning – and assessing its achievement – at places like Tufts University’s College of Citizenship and Public Service, IUPUI, Portland State University, CSU Monterey Bay, UMass Boston’s College of Public and Community Service, and others. There is also work being done by Patti Clayton and her colleagues at North Carolina State University developing deep reflection that draws out articulated civic learning. This innovative work will help higher education achieve it civic mission and help students become effective citizens of the world.
John Saltmarsh is Director of the New England Resource Center for Higher Education at the University of Massachusetts, Boston as well as a faculty member in the Department of Leadership in Education in the Graduate College of Education.