Florida is revamping civic education and OCPA is playing a role

I love the old Schoolhouse Rock cartoons that teach American citizens. Wouldn’t it be great if the Constitution could actually stand up and speak? The Constitution could defend itself! Freeing the National Archives, running down Constitution Avenue, running down Congress, and like a mantra repeating the phrase preferred in Art. I: “All legislative powers. He granted this …”

Of course, it doesn’t work that way. The constitution remains under thick glass in the National Archives Museum. Whether it has any effect on our national life concerns the American people.

Civic Education or National Suicide

Wise American politicians have always understood this. George Washington’s Farewell Address was written to shape public opinion in support of the Union and constitutional government. John Adams declared the Constitution only “moral and religious.”

In one of his speeches, Abraham Lincoln noted the remarkable happiness and strength of our youth, but warned: “If our lot is destruction, we must be the originator and the finisher.”

How to avoid national death? Lincoln called upon parents, teachers, professors, curriculum writers (so he named them by name), pastors, legislators, and judges to teach, by word and deed, reverence and fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took this to heart.

Of course, many conservatives oppose toxic doctrine, such as the racist “Critical Race Theory” and the debunked “1619 Project.” But similar efforts of the past, like the fight against the Common Core, remind me of the warning of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, where an unclean spirit leaves a person only to return and find “my house from which I came … empty, swept, and clothed.” in order.” What then happens? The unclean spirit finds seven other spirits worse than itself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last of that man are worse than the first.”

Whatever one thinks of Common Core, it doesn’t include the Queen’s story hour.

My Florida Experience

Gov. DeSantis and Sunshine State legislators understand that the real way to combat bad ideas is to supplant them with good ideas. After assuming the office of Gov. DeSantis has done a great job of revitalizing civic education in Florida. This includes new civics standards, new curriculum, and a plan to teach teachers more about American history and government.

I played a small part in Florida’s master’s program, providing content for a module on the constitutional amendment process. Working with the Department of Education, I found out how important it is to the president. Until the staff apologetically in the soup. Why? Because Gov. DeSantis was asking for breaks and his staff would check in regularly.

That is, he runs the bureaucracy in charge. That in itself could pass for legal revelation in the 21st century. While Gov. DeSantis gives impressive speeches and talks, he also runs state government. Creating and funding a civil initiative required cooperation with state legislators, who passed the civil rights bill and joined the president in his cause.

In the bill signing ceremony, state Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez explained why that matter is relevant to her. “As the daughter and granddaughter of Cuban refugees, my family knows first hand the dangers of communism and the fatal consequences of totalitarian regimes.” His hope is that Florida’s improved civics education will help “to ensure that history does not repeat itself in our great nation.”

Media ignorance on Full Display

All of this has put some people on edge. MSNBC’s program has repeatedly framed Florida’s civics as “Christian nationalism (or simply “Christianity”, which passes as an epithet in today’s Left) and indoctrination.” Other mainstream media outlets have joined in. The two topics that draw the most fire are religion and, predictably, slavery.

A CBS report from Florida’s background noted that the American founders were expected to “promote religion” and not uniformly for “strict separation of church and state.” The CBS teachers union claims that this is “revisionist history”. However, Florida’s career is simply history, or we don’t like it.

George Washington’s Farewell Address, written with the help of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison with input from John Jay (who together are P. triumvirate, author. Federalist Papers), recapitulates what is commonly said about the Founders;

Among all the dispositions and habits which lead to political success, Religion and Morality are necessary aids. That vain man claims tribute to Patriotism, which seeks to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, the firmest supports of men and civil duties. … Whatever the influence of learned learning may be allowed on minds of particular structure, reason, and experience, we forbear to hope that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of religious principle.

The origins of American public schools in the 19th century were premised on the importance of inculcating some form of Protestant Christianity. When Oklahoma City’s Emerson High School was renovated, tablets were found from 1917 when the school’s instructions were still chalked on them. One reads: “I will give my head, my heart, and my life to my God, and one undivided nation with justice for all.”

Regarding slavery, the middle criticism is much more absurd. MSNBC and others object to the content that it places American slavery in the context of universal slavery. He reveals that the leftists in the teachers’ unions and the media see a threat in the delivery of the students: slavery was once endemic in the world, many old Americans saw evil in it, as if they did not know what to do; The British and Americans finally stood up against slavery and abolished the bloodshed.

Florida tends to create great citizens

Until recently the purpose of education – especially when it was funded by the fund and run by the government – included the training of good citizens. This includes not only understanding the form of American government, but understanding why it is good. Florida’s program explicitly aims to create loving American citizens, people invested in their communities, state, and nation. “We have,” said Gov. DeSantis, “our students are prepared to care for great citizens.”

Of course, none of this stands in the way of admitting America’s sins. Quite the opposite, it means recognizing them and the duty they are doing for all Americans, and working to make our nation more consistent with our principles. Most Americans understand that, as with man, so with the nation made up of them, imperfection is inevitable. Only the Utopian—the most dangerous of all political fanatics—believes that discrete defects are sufficient evidence to condemn an ​​entire nation.

Part of Florida’s civic initiative is “Patriots in Patriotism,” which will record oral histories that show “deep patriotism in the personal stories of diverse individuals who demonstrate civic qualities.” To broaden students’ horizons and, dare I say it, inoculate them against left-wing anti-Americanism, these will include “first-person accounts of victims of other nations’ governing philosophies.”

Oklahoma could follow Florida

The current campaign for the state Superintendent of Public Instruction in Oklahoma is marked by a similar debate. The media representative for the Secretary of Education Ryan Walters, one of the candidates, voted “controversial” to call for a teacher in Oklahoma, which emphasizes the good of America.

What I mean: public schools teaching the truth about American history and government, with an emphasis on the good about our nation. This is not just a way for conservatives to engage in political struggles or policies, this is the only way America survives. No wonder MSNBC is crazy.