Tag Archives: civics education

Back to Democracy Basics, Part III

Prove Me Wrong

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON | SEPT 29, 2025

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
— “Citizenship in a Republic,” Speech by former President Theodore Roosevelt, Paris, April 23, 1910

Whatever you think of the late Charlie Kirk and his political and evangelical messages, he was a citizen who stepped into the arena President Theodore Roosevelt admired as the ultimate in civic engagement …. and was shot dead.

What comes as a surprise is that one-third of college students surveyed earlier this year said that “using violence to stop a campus speech” can be acceptable. There was no difference in the findings when noncollege millennials and Generation Z young adults were asked the same question.

Those results were released by the conservative Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) the day before Kirk was assassinated. Kirk was on an Arizona campus to promote open and civil discussion among young people when he was struck down. He spoke his mind and then challenged his audience to “prove me wrong,” a phrase emblazoned on his t-shirt that day.

Similar survey results were also found in a YouGov survey. They are not only disturbing but depressing and unnerving. Continue reading →

It’s Time to Make Civics Great Again

BY Louise Dube’ and Shawn Healy, Ripon Society Forum | APR 19, 2025

The Founders would be appropriately bewildered by many facets of modern life in year 250 of the American experiment, but they’d probably be downright shocked by how far we have let our approach to educating young people stray from their original vision.

They believed unequivocally that the point of education in America should be to impart knowledge to young people that would help them be responsible citizens, contributing members of their communities, and ultimately, defenders of constitutional democracy. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison extolled civic learning as a bulwark against tyranny. And President George Washington, in his final Annual Address to Congress in 1796, said that the “education of our Youth in the science of Government” would prepare them to be “future guardians of the liberties of the Country.” Continue reading →

Restoring Civic Education, Civic Engagement, and Civil Discourse

“Knowledge about the ideas embodied in the Constitution and the ways in which it shapes our lives is not passed down from generation to generation through the gene pool; it must be learned anew by each generation.”
–The late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, founder of iCivics

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON | NOV 13, 2024

Emily Brubaker, a middle school student from Alaska, thin framed in her dark suit and wire glasses, strode onto a stage in the nation’s capital. She had to wait for the microphone to be lowered for her to reach. She was there to make her case for legislation mandating insurance coverage for people with a serious medical condition that does harm to both eyes and teeth.

Emily was confident and convincing and, combined with other demonstrated skills, she emerged the victor in the first annual National Civics Bee Championship held in Washington, D.C. and hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

Close behind in second place was Michael O’Mara from Iowa, and in third, Keith Lee representing New Mexico, both 14. They were among the finalists competing for the honor.

While they didn’t get the attention of the elections a week prior, the students were tested in a competition that metaphorically was similarly consequential, not just for the students but for a nation of citizens young and old lacking the civics education needed to fulfill their role as future leaders and responsible citizens. Continue reading →

Random Thoughts

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON | AUG 1, 2024

I find famous quotations therapeutic. Some make you smile. Some become an aha moment. Some make you wish you had said that. A couple of examples with more later.

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. — James Bovard, Libertarian author, lecturer

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free! — P. J. O’Rourke, author and political satirist

It’s good to have a little comic relief now and then, particularly now. There’s not much to smile about when it comes to the national debt crisis just around the corner. Continue reading →

The Pillars of Democracy

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON | NOV 6, 2023

The Lincoln Memorial along the shores of the Potomac River was designed by architect Henry Bacon as a likeness to the Parthenon, the ancient Greek temple. The Parthenon had 25 beautiful columns forming its rectangular sides. Some of them are still standing today above Athens as a monument to the enduring legacy of what became the cradle of democracy. The Parthenon was constantly being restored after centuries of storms, wars, and revolutions.

The Lincoln Memorial, a contemporary replica of the Greek temple, has 36 columns, the number of states in the Union Lincoln preserved. They symbolize the pillars of our democratic Republic, the enduring civic and governmental institutions that have girded our system of governance. Those 36 pillars literally hold up the Lincoln Memorial just as those institutions figuratively support our system of governance.

The Lincoln is more than its legacy. The Memorial should be a constant reminder that our democratic Republic has faced serious and corrosive challenges before and the nation has counted on those institutions to preserve the very structure of the Union. Continue reading →