Raise Them UP! Episode 6

About this Episode

Sikkenga, a political professor works at the Ashbrook Center in Ashland Ohio

He’s co-author of “It’s a Republic if We Can Teach It”

We discuss the book & the hunger for a deep civics’ education-but young people are not getting it- less time devoted to civics. Time is being devoted elsewhere.

Schools don’t teach civics along with U.S. History. Causing a crisis because it’s difficult to keep a republic when young people don’t know what a republic is.

Ashland University is educating teachers on how to teach civics centered on the primary documents of our founding such as the Constitution, Bill of Rights, sermons, etc.

The shift away from civics began in the 1960’s when the space race outlined by Kennedy put a greater emphasis on science & math. Then, it continued right up to today with the stem programs.

Sikkenga thinks the approach to teaching civics needs to change. Teachers don’t have time to dig deeply into our history to make it fascinating similar to the Bible.

The question most often missed is “why?” do have the government we have, the history we have. When asked, it brings history & civics alive.

More of civics and history needs to be tied to contemporary times to make it more interesting to students.

We started talking a bit about the Supreme Court.

Dr. Sikkenga talked about the Ashland way of teaching civics that sets it apart. Too much is just memorization, testing and then the students forget about what they learned.

Our public discourse is very thin when it comes to civics. For instance, we have lost sight of the Declaration of independence. New immigrants are better versed on American civics than native born citizens.

Why they wrote the book and aimed it at journalists & teachers to strengthen the public discourse as they report on the law and constitutional issues.

How civics & history has gone woke in how it is taught. Slavery is one such topic. Jefferson & Washington both wrote about slavery. They knew it was morally evil and hoped it would go away. But, slavery is complex, so if no scant look at it reflects well on our founding fathers.

Always a question of how to have an honest conversation in our woke society, about the bad aspects of our history. But, if addressed head on and directly the conversations remain civil.

How do we do things differently. His book offers solutions. History and civics have to be taught by teaching children how to think. In essence, teachers have to be taught what makes up education.

Policymakers can also have a role in educating teachers, helping them discern what documents are the most important to teach.

Then, we shifted the conversation and discussed how he came to write the book with the former President of Pepperdine University David Davenport. David keep pushing the project forward.

Both authors agreed when writing the book, that the crisis in civics education was: “we (our society & academics) have done less and worse and we need to do more and better civics education.” So, David, a policy guy focused on the more part, and Sikkenga focused the better part of how to teach history & civics better…so they complimented each other well.

Book has been favorably received because it cuts across political divides. Then, Sikkenga talked about Reagan’s final speech about patriotism. Link to amazon book: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=It%27s+a+Republic%2C+if+We+can+Teach+it+by+Davenport+%26+Sikkenga&crid=BRMR5T9ZAJSX&sprefix=it%27s+a+republic%2C+if+we+can+teach+it+by+davenport+%26+sikkenga%2Caps%2C79&ref=nb_sb_noss

Ashbrook Center (https://ashbrook.org)has a website aimed at teachers called “TeachingAmericanHistory.org” They have programs high school students can take from the Ashland Center over the summer in person at the Ashbrook Academy. Link to teachers’ site: https://teachingamericanhistory.org/

Their podcast is “The American Idea- link here: https://ashbrook.org/americanideapod/