The Sputnik moment for civics in North Carolina public education

A bright light shone over the skies of North Carolina last week for the restoration of civility in the state and nation when the School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL) at UNC Chapel Hill won a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to teach civics to educators and students across the state.

Civics used to be a class every student had to take during their years in N.C. public schools, but over the past 25 years, the focus on civics classes started to wane due to various political and funding decisions. Consequently, naturalized citizens in the U.S. have a far greater understanding of the content and history of the U.S. government and constitutional history than most young people in North Carolina simply due to the fact they had to study both to be granted full citizenship.

Whatever understanding young people received about the Great American Experiment with democratic republican government came from their parents or whatever spoofs and jokes were delivered on the Comedy Channel by Jon Stewart, both of which were hardly comprehensive and many times misinformed or misguided.

The million-dollar grant will be used to train teachers in the proper way to educate young people about our civic government and life together and for summer institutes at the SCiLL center on the campus in Chapel Hill. There, teachers and students will receive comprehensive training and materials they can then take home for the school year and train hundreds of other students who otherwise could not attend the summer classes.

This may be the Sputnik response we need for repairing what ails us in our public political life together.

Most people under the age of 65 don’t know or realize it, but after the Russian launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, U.S. government, scientific and military officials, and the public at large freaked out. They were concerned the Soviet communist was going to control the world from space, and America had better do something about it. They decided to embark on a massive science and math upgrade to all public school systems to find and train students. The hope was it could help the nation meet the Soviet threat through technological advances and not lose our democratic republic to Soviet military superiority.

Gifted and talented classes were formed throughout the nation, and young students were enrolled to take the most challenging science and math courses local schools offer.

It must have worked. Not only did America land the first man on the moon in 1969, but it has dominated the space race and technological development ever since.

We may now be entering a similar epochal change period, except now it is the cultural and political landscape America must repair and improve. The SCiLL civics grant is evidence that concentrated political and financial support can be focused on training the next generation on the benefits of representational government and how it must be run by responsible, far-sighted people of integrity and character to prevent its collapse.

No single event triggered the crisis of civil government misunderstanding, but the dramatic assassination of Charlie Kirk will certainly be seared into everyone’s minds after two failed attempts on President Donald Trump. The summers of violence in our nation’s big cities during and after BLM marches and protests have also contributed to the widespread perception that something was mightily wrong about our civic life together. Not only did people think destroying other people’s property was the right thing to do to make a political point, but elected officials at various levels of government thought it was OK to let them do it — even telling local police forces to stand down and supporting “defund the police” efforts.

The disintegration of commonly shared values and principles has been pointed to as a reason for such social unrest. Restarting civics classes in North Carolina’s classrooms may not solve all the societal, economic and racial problems we face as a state or nationally. However, the grant awarded to the SCiLL center is a start. It may take some time to see tangible results, but doing nothing to encourage the education of our young people would certainly not help improve matters at all.

Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln wrote often about the need for solid public education in the new republic, and not just so people would be able to get a job, sustain themselves and raise families. They recognized the importance of having a populace educated about the history and the underlying philosophy that led to the creation of America. That is critical to maintaining a free democratic republic led by duly elected representatives who understand how fragile democratically elected republics truly.

Here’s to the response to our recent past in failed civil discourse and politics being as successful as the scientific training and teaching response was to Sputnik 68 years ago.