False dichotomies no more: It’s about content and skills!

Earlier in the year, I warned, “We cannot possibly continue to move solely in the direction of ‘college and career readiness’ in History & Social Studies education without ensuring that ‘civic’ readiness is valued equally.”  If teachers, districts, and states across the country embrace The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social then we have nothing to fear.

Simply put, the C3 Framework is fantastic.  It is exactly what our nation needs to ensure civic life and participation is properly valued, and it is what the Social Studies teaching profession needs to ensure our discipline retains its unique and essential role within our education system.  It is brilliant in its conception, its modesty and its usefulness as a document to inform policy and practice.

The C3 describes itself as a document that provides “states with voluntary guidance for upgrading existing social studies standards… [which] aims to support states in creating standards that prepare young people for effective and successful participation in college, careers, and civic life.”  It is not another set of Common Core standards, but rather a framework to guide states as they seek to upgrade existing state Social Studies standards to align them with the Common Core.  More significantly, it is a gift to teachers who want clear guidelines for the skills, dispositions, and thinking we want to develop in our students.

The primary brilliance of the C3 is that it moves beyond the over-simplified debates of content vs. skills and instead recognizes Civics as more than the sum of those two parts.  Rather, it recognizes that Civics is about dispositions that lead to action.  For students, this means that they will not only learn the story of history or explanations of economics and government.  Nor does it mean, as many fear, that social studies courses will just become another site of reading and writing instruction, void of content or understanding, to improve students’ scores on Common Core-aligned exams.  It means that as students’ develop skills, gain knowledge, and uncover understandings, that these gains will come from a position of inquiry, and will be applied, in hopefully meaningful ways, to the issues and audiences students’ face in their lives.

According to the Framework, to act with civic responsibility:

“students need the intellectual power to recognize societal problems; ask good questions and develop robust investigations into them; consider possible solutions and consequences; separate evidence-based claims from parochial opinions; and communicate and act upon what they learn. And most importantly, they must possess the capability and commitment to repeat that process as long as is necessary.”

The C3 framework begins with the act of questioning, and ends with the act of sharing knowledge and taking informed action. In between, it offers clear guidelines for disciplinary thinking and research.  It is particularly strong in its definition of historical thinking and recognition of history as “interpretive.” The Framework describes these four stages as the “arc” of social studies.  By repeating this arc of inquiry multiple times in a grade, year after year, it will create more than civic knowledge and capacities; it will create a civic disposition.

The C3 is also intelligent for what it is not: It’s not a list of content that students should learn.  Those decisions are smartly left to the states, and I hope that states will leave those decisions to school communities.  Any attempt to do otherwise would lead to a lowest common denominator approach, which, in the end, would not serve anyone.

Finally, the C3 Framework is very useful document.  It clearly shows its own connections with the Common Core.  It lucidly articulates expectations of performance for each part of each dimension at different levels.  And it documents the research behind its work and recommendations.  Kathy Swan and her team deserve high praise for this contribution to our field.

The C3 Framework represents a significant step forward for Social Studies teaching and our country’s civic life.  Teachers and caring citizens should support its implementation.   I will be doing what I can to push New York to adopt it.