A proposal for a "Civics Connections" colloquium-style course for high school students

Recently I have been learning about the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. One aspect of it that I think non-IB high schools can learn from is the IB program's Theory of Knowledge course (https://www.ibo.org/programmes/diploma-programme/curriculum/dp-core/theory-of-knowledge/what-is-tok/). The IB Theory of Knowledge course is a teacher-designed "thoughtful and purposeful inquiry into different ways of knowing, and into different kinds of knowledge" that makes connections between knowledge and several other areas as described below:

https://toktopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/tok-guide-from-2020.pdf

While I don't expect non-IB schools to add an actual Theory of Knowledge course, I do see a commonly-required high school subject in which a connections-based, colloquium-style course would be of enormous benefit: civics. 

Most US states require a civics course or a US. history course as a requirement for high school graduation. However, civics taught alone is a dry subject and based on the current level of civic awareness I see around me, the civics course requirements as currently implemented are not very effective at producing a civically-involved population. Young adults are not engaging in politics like they need to if they are to help run this government "of the people" and "by the people" (https://apnorc.org/projects/younger-adults-are-less-engaged-with-u-s-politics/).

A colloquium course is one in which the students, instructors, and guest lecturers read or view assignments on a variety of topics ahead of time and come together in class to discuss what they have read, making connections between the topics and analyzing the readings for themes and relevance. 

I am aware that many high school students now struggle with reading. Here is an area where AI can be very useful, for AI tools can quickly produce short, easy-to-read versions of the assigned readings for students who require scaffolding in reading comprehension. Text-to-speech tools can also be used by students to listen to the readings ahead of time. Literacy challenges should not prevent us from teaching civics in a meaningful way.

Below is my proposed outline for the topics to be covered in a two-semester high school course that would teach civics in connection with world history, geography, scientific discoveries, communication networks, and societal structures. Each week would look at a time period/location with three focuses: history (geography, anthropology), science (discovery, communication and storage of knowledge), and social studies (civics, social structures (include representative art/shapes), social issues). The pre-class assignments would include short readings and videos. Assessments would be in the form of observations of class participation, in-class worksheets (prepared to be of help with notetaking during class discussions), in-class quizzes (include matching, multiple choice, short answer, and short essay questions), and a summative project/essay/documentary at the end of the second semester.

Semester 1:

Week 1: Prehistory, ancient civilizations, knowledge (what is truth? who knows truth?), root of “science”, shapes of civilization, power & subjugation versus freedom

2: Babylon, cuneiform, astronomy, empires, vassal states

3: Americas and Polynesia [include local material about prehistoric times], local flora and fauna, subsistence nomadism and early agriculture, monuments, baskets and pottery, small extended-family tribes

4: Egypt, medicine, hieroglyphics, Judaism, migration (push and pull factors)

5: China, waterways, irrigation, calligraphy, Confucianism, scholars, meritocracy

6: Africa, minerals (esp. gold), oral tradition, tribes, warfare, struggles against nature 

7: Adriatic (Greeks, Etruscans, Romans), philosophers (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle), tutors, birth of democracy, theater

8: Mediterranean (just after 0 AD), temples and oracles, navigation, medicine (Galen), letters, Christianity, dynastic politics across land and sea

9: India, mathematics, Brahmins, castes, Buddha, Hindu religions (including laws and customs)

10: Two Roman Empires, monks and churches, “barbarians”, Crusades, feudalism

11: Arabian peninsula, caravans (goods and information), missionary movements, Islam, clerics, Islamic law

12: Worldwide slavery trends (poverty, race, conquest, gender, caste, etc.), limitations on learning and travel by slaves and its effects on progress/wealth of various societies, status of women, mortality trends (esp. childbirth, early childhood, and warfare) 

13: Northern Europe, “alchemy” and “witches” versus wise women, Vikings (monastery attacks), Althing (Iceland), Battle of Hastings

14: Worldwide freedom trends (increased value of human capital, growing traditions of freedom with decline of serfdom ties), Black Death, biology and medicine, guilds, rule of law, Magna Carta

15: Americas and Polynesia around 1200 AD [include local material], monuments, stelae, codices, quipu, god-kings, priests (human sacrifice), Mesoamerican city layouts (Peten, Teotihuacan, Cahokia), early soccer, Hero Twin myths

16: Europe kingdoms, printing press, books (Bible translations), Protestant Reformation, religious/political/social upheavals

Semester 2:

Week 1: Discovery (Ericson, Columbus, Janszoon), cartography, navigation, libraries, colonization, destruction of Maya codices

2: Renaissance, intercontinental exchanges (Marco Polo, Old<--->New World), de Medicis, Machiavelli

3: Rise of courts, parliaments (Cromwell), charters (universities), contracts, lawyers

4: Rise of merchants and academics and decline of royalty, companies, political parties, banks, checks and letters of credit, stock, investments and eventual adoption of banknotes

5: Early police institutions (sheriffs, Bow Street runners), civil service, professional militaries, social mobility, colonial/criollo identity

6: Revolutions of colonies (US, Bolivia, Louverture, Bolivar, San Martin, Rizal), universities, pamphlet presses, Stamp Act, representative democracy

7: Constitutions (especially US drafting, compromises, and adoption), structure and civics rules of US three branches, executive branch of government, taxation (Whiskey and Fries rebellions) 

8: US Bill of Rights, limits on government powers, clipper ships

9: Religious “awakenings”, abolitionism, political fiction (Uncle Tom’s Cabin), British ending of slavery, US Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws

10: Steamboats, migrations (US: Oregon trail, Mormon migration, gold rushes, coolies, Irish), telegraph, nearly-instant newspaper reports, immigration restrictions

11: Industrialization (steam, then electricity), telephone (everyone can share information), privacy concerns, advances in chemistry and vehicles (land and air)

12: World War I, communism in Russia, Great Depression, banking changes (move off gold standard, FDIC), suffrage, Prohibition, treaties, entertainment and media celebrities

13: World War II, more colonies gain independence, espionage, internment, GI bill, suburbia growth, nuclear and quantum advances, popular science, science fiction/fantasy

14: Activism (peaceful and terrorist), computers (vacuum tubes to punch cards to tapes to chips), Civil Rights movement (African-Americans), voting rights, agricultural “Green Revolution”, population growth

15: Telecommunications, television and cable, growth of internet (listserves, DRPA-net, WWW, darkwebs), long-distance relationships (commercial, romantic, family, interest groups, etc.), outsourcing

16: Cellphones, social media, artificial intelligence, chatbots, brain computer interfaces, EULAs (end user license agreements), new technology uses, data centers, consent and transparency legal issues

This outlined sequence of topics endeavors to lead students to a strong understanding of the many, continuing struggles for individual freedom and the urgent need for lifelong civic involvement. I would have loved to have taken a civics course like this when I was in high school.

Mind reading and telepathy in a Tom Clancy book from 1988

I have been reading The Cardinal of the Kremlin by Tom Clancy. When I first read it decades ago, much of the technical information about lasers and interrogation techniques went over my head. The laser details still mostly go over my head!

This read-through, I realized that Tom Clancy portrayed a KGB "interrogation" that used telepathy and brainwave reading to "read" thoughts. But he portrayed it without saying outright what was happening.

If you have a copy of the book handy, turn to the last part of chapter ten, where Svetlana is put into a sensory deprivation saltwater tank and cannot even hear her own screams. She has divers in the tank with her to keep her from touching her air hose and realizing where she is. Otherwise, she is only wearing a wetsuit. In preparation for the tank session, she was coated with oil and given an injection. 

Yet with no other wires, transmitters, or receivers mentioned--other than her own body--she is able to hear the interrogating doctor gently whisper into a microphone in another room. Then, somehow, despite having an air hose in, she talks back to the interrogator and tells him everything.

The interrogation facilities are described as the "most secret part of Lefortovo's interrogation wing."

Both "mind reading" and translation of sounds into electrical signals that the brain can perceive as speech are now publicly acknowledged to be possible. As to the first, the Chinese can use computer brain interface technology to interpret brainwave activity and accurately output unspoken thoughts as written Mandarin. As to the second, we have had cochlear implants available for many years.

Just because something was not publicly known to be possible decades ago is no indication of whether it was possible back then. Physics principles are the same yesterday, today, and into the future. Science--which means knowledge--increases or decreases, but physics stays the same.

It looks like Tom Clancy or one of his editors knew classified information about telepathy-enabling technology almost forty years ago. Who else knew, and how else was it used?

We are to keep valuable truth safe, not to hide it

In the 1800s, Joseph Smith studied the Bible and felt inspired to make some changes. The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published his changes as the "Inspired Version" (text available online at https://www.centerplace.org/hs/iv/default.htm). One noteworthy change, which somehow didn't make it into the LDS Bible footnotes or appendix, where those changes are supposed to be available for LDS readers, is in Matthew 13. Joseph Smith wrote the parable of the treasure in the field as follows:

13:46 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in a field. And when a man hath found a treasure which is hid, he secureth it and, straightway, for joy thereof, goeth, and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

The King James Version of the Bible gives the parable in the following words:

44 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

Do you see the difference? There is a big difference between securing something and hiding something. To secure something means to get it and keep it safe from damage, while to hide something means to keep it away from everyone else.

Yet the current LDS version of the Bible does not show this important change from hiding to securing. It is not in the footnotes at the bottom of the pages showing Matthew 13. That is highly unusual, for the footnotes often show even insignificant changes in the Joseph Smith version. 

The change to "securing" is also not included in the Appendix, which contains a longer passage from Matthew 13. If you have access to the LDS Bible currently in use, you can check this for yourselves.

This is a substantive change about not hiding things that got hidden by in what appears to be an intentional omission! I think this is strong evidence of untrustworthy behavior by some who work in LDS Church media services. Jesus said we're supposed to believe that which is true, but he never said we have to let ourselves be taken in by people who exhibit untrustworthy behavior.

Some lessons from educational experiences

My children have almost aged out of homeschooling. They like to go to "regular" high school. So, after over 15 years of being a "homeschool mom," I am extending myself in different directions. My professional degree mostly went unused all the years I was homeschooling, so I am going back to school to become a teacher. 

As I have tutored, taught, substitute taught, and volunteered over the past few years, I have learned some lessons that I wish everyone knew. 

First: Our children do not need smart phones. 

The phones are actively interfering with academic growth because they displace advanced reading practice. Not even half of US adolescents can read what should be high school level texts in history, science, and so on. Reading--the basic skill of education, the skill which makes all the other aims of education independently achievable--is alarmingly on the decline right up through the university level (https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryancraig/2024/11/15/kids-cant-read-books/). Do the children a favor and get them a "dumb phone" instead.

Second: Teaching beginning readers to guess words from context is harming their ability to read.

Beginning readers are not knowledgeable enough to understand how to successfully deduce a word from context. They just hear us adults say, "Guess...." And so they guess....too often wrong. We are wasting precious literacy development time when we tell kids things like "look at the first and last letter and guess what the word is from context." Yes, that is really what they are told in some reading programs.

Children will be much better off if we teach them how to read new words by sounding them out, left-to-right, with allowances for the different letter patterns that come from French/Greek/German/Latin. (Children like maps and stories of cool cultures. What if we taught them that English is partly French? That could actually rescue their interest in language arts.)

Third: We have some confusing curricula out there, and we should blame it before blaming children or teachers. 

Yes, teachers are underpaid. Yes, students are distracted. But the curricula adopted in many schools is frequently illogical in how it presents material. I see much that is unclear in textbooks' approaches and expectations. In our concern over poor educational outcomes, we need to look harder at confusing, frustrating curricula. "Common Core" isn't the problem; rather, it's the poor implementation of the Common Core standards in some curricula.

We certainly shouldn't be blaming little kids for not having enough "grit." We are the responsible adults, and we should give them instruction that is genuinely effective for their age level.