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Seasnek t1_itvbxk8 wrote

I mean, did you see how a group of kids filed a national lawsuit against the state of Rhode island because of the terrible civics education?

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mooscaretaker OP t1_itvdveb wrote

Yes I recall that. Whatever happened? Honestly its not just kids, I've had convos with older adults who have no idea the difference between federal, state and local govt responsibilities. It's scary.

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Seasnek t1_itvizi6 wrote

https://rihumanities.org/program/ri-civic-health-index/ I'm quoting from this

While the case was dismissed due to lack of precedent, Rhode Island District Court Judge William Smith stated that the case ”does not represent a wild-eyed effort to expand the reach of substantive due process, but rather a cry for help from a generation of young people who are destined to inherit a country which we—the generation currently in charge—are not stewarding well.”

As one outcome of the lawsuit, the Rhode Island Department of Education agreed to establish a civic education task force, currently in formation. Furthermore, in 2021, the Rhode Island State Legislature passed the Civic Literacy Act, which requires all public high school graduates to demonstrate civics proficiency and offers students the opportunity to complete a student-led civics project. Implementation of these initiatives is currently in process, with the potential for current research to inform next steps, and with the final outcomes to be seen.

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Seasnek t1_itvjcqf wrote

https://www.ncoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/RI_CHI_2022-FINAL.pdf

Further quoting

approximately 42% of respondents agreed that their K-12 civics education prepared them to be active members of their community;

29% indicated they would be extremely or somewhat likely to get involved in issues that affected their community;

Now again, this is where I'm curious about what the kids consider "getting involved" because think about those national news articles about all the kids coming together to out teachers that were sexually harassing other students. Is that "civic involvement" or "fighting against something that affected THEIR community"

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mooscaretaker OP t1_itvj5wl wrote

That's hopeful, as I recall this was a bipartisan effort as well.

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PM_ME_YOUR_LUKEWARM t1_itwg3os wrote

I remember history was the big stressor for me in 9th grade.

Really useful that class was; how often I had to know Tutankhamun's family.

Civics would have been much better.

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JasonDJ t1_itwt34v wrote

I think 8th grade was the only year I had “civics”. Every other year was world or US history. Had an elective in HS that focused on WW2 Germany/The Holocaust. Another elective on criminal justice. Another elective for anthropology.

I don’t think US history ever made it past the 30s.

Johnston High, class of 2003.

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Dorothy-Snarker t1_itxzlid wrote

I remember complaining that my history classes always ended at WWII (after skipping over WWI completely--I had no idea what it was about until I took a class in college). Today they sometimes seem to go to Vietnam at least.

The ending on WWII year after year actually caused me to hate WWII. Don't talk to me about it! It's boring! My father, who's own father fought in WWII, thinks I'm a heathen, but I'm just sick of it. There are so many more interesting history periods. Can we please learn something else? Hell, even in 20th Century America, there is a stuff of cool stuff my history classes never got to that I didn't learn about until college.

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