Civic skills we need to keep our democracy
As primaries roll out around the country, we’re tracking voter turnout.
Raised on “Schoolhouse Rock’s” cartoon civics lessons, I know that being a good American means voting.Those 1970s cartoons weren’t wrong. Voting is the most fundamental act of democratic citizenship. That’s why it has been fiercely contested throughout our history.
But we’re in the 21st century, deluged by information, increasingly divided, with few models of bipartisanship.
Democracy requires much more than voting. What should a 21st-century “Schoolhouse Rock” teach?
FINDING INFORMATION
Most fundamentally, we need to be skilled seekers of information. In this era of deepfakes, bots and fragmenting media platforms, the ability to access and evaluate information is key. Algorithms push us ever more deeply into one point of view. To address multifaceted 21st-century issues, we need deliberately to seek a variety of information, including ba...