U. Colorado Regents Back Requirement on Constitution Course
Not a bad idea…
The University of Colorado have five members of its Board of Regents that back a requirement for the students to take a class on the Constitution. From Campus Reform:
According to The Daily Camera, five regents gathered during the board’s University Affairs Committee meeting to discuss the possible addition, which, if approved, would become a requirement in the university’s core curriculum.
Notably, of the five backing the initiative, at least two are registered Democrats, including Regent Steve Ludwig, who told The Camera that he’s convinced many graduates do not have the civic literacy that ought be expected of them.
Meanwhile, Regent John Carson, a Republican, stressed the importance of such a requirement at this particular moment, saying “it shouldn’t be challenging to disagree with people and not feel like you have to physically assault them.”
“I think what holds us together as a country is not race, geography, ethnicity,” he added. “It’s the Constitution. I don’t think we’re doing our job as adults passing on this amazing legacy to younger people.”
Regent Heidi Ganahl, one of the five in favor of the motion, noted that the curriculum as a whole will ultimately need to be reevaluated before their proposal moves forward, but stood by the importance of the initiative.
“For me personally it’s a course in the history of America, including a focus on the founding documents and the key Amendments, the battles waged over our short history and how our institutions work,” she said, stressing that it’s “critical to teach our students how to think, not what to think.”
Similar to Carson, Ganahl noted that “including a portion on civil discourse and how to debate effectively would be helpful as well considering what’s happening in our country today,” citing two studies as reasoning for the course.
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Comments
This course could definitely depend on who’s teaching it. Strict interpretation of the founding documents make for a universally-palatable viewpoint to centrists and even the bulk of both parties. On the other hand, far-reaching Obama-era interpretations (e.g. the right to life = right to free health care) could quickly corrupt the value of a course like this.
stressing that it’s “critical to teach our students how to think, not what to think.”
Actually what it should teach is how to think like Americans, rather than thinking like someone—or anyone—else.
This makes perfect sense, if Thatcher was right that America is a product of philosophy, rather than history. That philosophy is a suitable subject for study in any useful American education. We’ve been relying on American juveniles to pick up the tune even if they’re not explicitly taught the words, but as we see from the current brownshirtism infesting the land like mosquitoes, that’s not working out too well.