'Star Wars' Civic Education a Battle for the Republic
It was not like I was a Jedi knight trying to save the republic or anything.
I was just grading papers in my summer Journalism 101 course when I got jolted.
That's what I get for trying to teach journalism's role in democracy. Here was one of the responses to a question about the mayoral primary election:
"I could care less," my student writes, "democracy is not that big of a deal."
Holy Darth Vader's ghost, I think, what do I say to that? "You're taking America for granted," I scribble in the margin. Then my mind wonders.
I flash back a couple of months to the inaugural gathering in Louisville's Brown Hotel of the 13-state Southern Coalition on Civic Education and Civic Engagement.
I was invited to speak about my Citizen Kentucky Project designed to engage college students at the crossroads of journalism and politics to help graduate more good citizens for Kentucky and enhance civic life.
Why would so many people from so many states care so much? It's because I am not alone in having such a jolting educational experience.
At the inaugural conference, keynote speaker Ted McConnell, director of the national Campaign to Promote Civic Education, called Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson the "Obi-Wan Kenobi" of the movement to make civic education a priority in America.
Do you have your own nomination for a poster child of the civic education movement? If so, let's hear it: Frankfort needs a civic wake-up call.
In case you missed it, a bipartisan legislative effort joining State Sen. Jack Westwood (R-Crescent Springs) with State Rep. Tanya Pullin (D-South Shore) has aimed to bolster civic education in the Commonwealth, but in the last legislative session, Senate Bill 115 died a quiet death.
That's the bad news.
The good news is that Kentucky is building a nationally ranked team of civic education activists.
Grayson served as chairman of the Kentucky Workgroup on Civic Literacy and Engagement, which organized the three-day (April 20-22) inaugural Southern Coalition conference this year.
The conference focused on developing a strategic plan to improve civic education and civic engagement from now through 2010.
Kentucky's prominence was unmistakable on the roll call of states and conferees: Alabama (2), Arkansas (1), Florida (1), Georgia (1), Kentucky (18), Louisiana (3), Mississippi (1), Missouri (1), North Carolina (3), Tennessee (4), Texas (1), Virginia (3) and West Virginia (1).
The Southern Coalition is leading a national effort that has enlisted the help of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
The battle cry is "If it's not tested, it's not taught," meaning that if the "No Child Left Behind Act" cannot be amended to include testing on civic literacy, then teachers are unlikely to make it a classroom priority.
In the Commonwealth, with its Kentucky Education Reform Act, the challenge is the same to get more civic literacy tested.
Of course, it will take more than required testing to keep another professor from reading such a chilling comment.
It will take good citizens like you to lobby state lawmakers, to help schoolteachers provide students with civic enrichment opportunities and to make civic literacy a priority in your own home.
You should care, my friend.
Democracy is a big deal, so please don't take it for granted. May the force be with you.