Hear Me Out: Teaching Civics Can’t Save Democracy

Slate Debates

Slate Podcasts

Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2023

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… I’m just a bill. A lot of Americans will agree, even across party lines, that our democracy feels broken. A commonly proposed solution is beefing up, or formalizing, the way we teach young people civics. Entities from the Center for American Progress to Vivek Ramaswamy have suggested that it’s time that we get students to know more about their government — in the hopes that knowing more leads to caring more, and engaging more. But by prioritizing civics, what else could students be missing? Reason Magazine’s Christian Barnard is our guest, here to argue that civics won’t save us. If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: [email protected] Podcast production by Maura Currie You can skip all the ads in Hear Me Out by joining Slate Plus. Sign up now at slate.com/hearmeoutplus for just $15 a month for your first three months. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Hear Me Out.
0:02.8	I'm Celeste Headley.
0:04.3	People on both ends of the political spectrum can agree that our democracy feels at least
0:09.0	a little broken.
0:10.0	Our measures of voter turnout, voter fatigue, and voter apathy will all back up that feeling.
0:16.0	So the solution many of us throw out there is, teach more civics.
0:20.0	There's no uniform curriculum for civics in this country, of course.
0:24.4	But Republican candidate for President Vivek Wamoswamy has proposed requiring high school
0:28.8	seniors to pass the equivalent of our citizenship test.
0:33.3	That suggestion has proven controversial.
0:36.3	At this point, only nine states in DC require a full year of civics education for young people.
0:42.3	So is requiring civics perhaps a recipe for a more informed, more active democracy?
0:49.3	Our guest today argues no.
0:52.0	This is just how human beings are.
0:54.0	They know that politics is not the only important part of their lives.
0:58.0	So how can anyone really grab their heads and say, this should be more important to you?
1:03.7	Christian Barnard of Reason Magazine joins us in just a moment.
1:07.4	Stay with us.
1:10.8	Welcome back to Hear Me Out.
1:12.6	I'm Celeste Headley.
1:14.3	The philosophy of the schoolhouse in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in
1:19.8	the next.
	...

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