Civic Skill Builders

7. Massively Parallel Roles & Tasks

Civic Skill Builders teach citizens about the advantages of democratic systems and how to use those systems to constructively handle the large number of difficult conflicts that inevitably occur in any modern society. Secondary schools used to act as civic skill builders (and can again), although far too many have eliminated their "civics" requirements because the curricula of such programs became highly contentious, and the simple, conflict-avoidant response was just to cut the courses. But this has resulted in a generation or two that understands very little about what democracy is, how it works, why it is preferable to other (particularly autocratic) systems, and, most importantly, why it is so important that citizens to fulfill their civic responsibilities. In the absence of such civic education in the schools, a wide variety of NGOs are working to fill the void. Some, like Civic Spirit work to encourage and help K-12 schools reinstate civics content in ways that "enhance civic belonging, knowledge, and responsibility in their student and faculty communities." Others, such as the Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG) aim at adult audiences. This effort (which could easily be replicated by and for other constituencies) is to "inspire women of faith to be ambassadors of peace who transcend partisanship and courageously advocate for ethical government." They teach peacebuilding and conflict resolution skills, along with "civics" to better prepare their members to be active participants in their communities and effective campaigners for ethical government. Other examples include: the RAND Corporation's report on the current state of citizenship education, the American Enterprise Institute's Proposal for University-Level Civic Education, CivXNow's cross partisan coalition of 260 organizations focused on improving civic education, and even recently enacted legislation providing $23 million to improve civics education across the country.