Democracy 201 is a paid-subscriber newsletter for civic educators, in a broad and inclusive sense. We share posts about promising practices and models for civic learning, as well as opinion pieces about important themes and principles in civic education, with a focus on the voices of civic educators and learners in the field.
Our mission is to pull together conversations and streams of work from across the country and across many different types of institutions into a shared forum, to improve coordination, growth, and collaboration in the present renaissance of civic learning. We’re aiming primarily to support educators (including staff, teacher educators, parents, and others) because we believe that when educators learn more about effective approaches to civic learning, they’ll be more empowered to support their students in their particular contexts.
There’s no one right way to do civic education, but some ways are better than others when it comes to preparing learners to participate in a constitutional democracy. Civic learning in the United States ought to support free inquiry and civic agency rather than rote learning or obedience, and ought to emphasize a commitment to pluralism and constitutional government. Experiential learning is particularly impactful, as research has shown. We’re not promoting civic education as a good in itself, but as a means of building a healthy civic culture to sustain and renovate our constitutional democracy.
We’re living in a time of political polarization, and the field of civic learning — which, after all, inescapably includes learning about politics, government, and ideologies — is hotly contested by practitioners coming from different ideological standpoints. Civic education is also the subject of scrutiny and critique from outside political actors, some of whom espouse overtly anti-democratic, i.e. authoritarian, views.
It is our intention to share a broad spectrum of substantive, pro-democratic (note the small d) perspectives to represent our community of civic educators. Some posts may be controversial, but we hope that they will all be useful food for thought. And if you wish to offer an alternative viewpoint or counter-argument, we encourage you to do so with a collegial, thoughtful comment!
All of our free content will continue to appear on Democracy 101; Democracy 201 will offer a deeper dive for paying subscribers. We at the Renovator would like to put more time into reporting on civic education and supporting the field, and we need to make that possible by supporting the work of our great team.
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At the end of the day, we as civic educators are all working toward a shared goal. We all benefit from supporting each other’s work, from helping colleagues to incorporate more civic learning into their work, and generally from sowing seeds to grow a healthier civic culture instead of building silos or gatekeeping.
Huge kudos for this work. I know you have thousands of subscribers, but my ability to contribute to your work may be unique. I am a long-time educator; four published books on the future of education, and my new book, Wisdom Road coming out in January, speaks directly to the core of civic education. I drove 20,000 miles around America, interviewing strangers in search of civility, shared values, common ground, and the ties that bind us. I have and am developing concrete tools educators can use to build some of the skills that I found most useful...without having to leave home for 30 weeks! I will be happy to share if it contributes to the good work you are doing!