"Every man and woman with an education has a twofold duty to perform. The first is to apply that education intelligently to problems of the moment; and the second is to obtain and maintain contact with, and understanding of, the average citizens of their own country."
--President Franklin Roosevelt, "Remarks at Washington College, Chestertown, Md., on Receiving an Honorary Degree," October 21, 1933.
Above: John Studebaker, Commissioner of Education, and Josephine Roche, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, 1935. Studebaker developed the Federal Forum Project: Public meetings across the nation that combined lecture and group discussion, for the overarching purpose of strengthening democracy. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Trumpism and QAnon prey on a lack of critical thinking skills
A recent Huffington Post article highlighted a woman who escaped from the QAnon cult: "She said she fell for QAnon content that presented no evidence, no counter arguments, and yet was all too convincing. 'We as a society need to start teaching our kids to ask: Where is this information coming from? Can I trust it?' she said." (Note: What she is calling for, is an increased emphasis on critical thinking skills.)
And with respect to Trumpism and similar societal ills, Chris Stirewalt, a former Fox News political editor, put things more crudely: "What connects [the adherents]--the same thing that threatens the health of the republic—is rank imbecility... our current concentration of imbeciles has surpassed any kind of safe level. How we became a nation of so many dupes and fools is a matter at least as complicated as the causes of Trump’s presidency... we are suffering the consequences from generations of Americans who are both undereducated and miseducated. This many millions of nincompoops didn’t show up overnight. They have been stumbling out of our nation's failing schools for decades."
Indeed, it is clear that tens of millions of Americans have not received an adequate education in good citizenship. A good citizenship education is composed of four main things: (1) Critical thinking: the ability and readiness to scrutinize claims and assertions, examine evidence, and consider counterarguments. (2) Ethics: The proper way to conduct oneself while in the public and while in public service. (3) Civic responsibility: The "active participation in the public life of a community in an informed, committed, and constructive manner, with a focus on the common good" (Center for Community & Civic Engagement, Mesa Community College). And (4) History Awareness: A thorough understanding of the nation's historic mistakes, successes, and journey to the present.
So, the question is this: How do we teach good citizenship. The answer is easier (but not necessarily easy) when we talk about K-12 or college. For example, we might expand K-12 to K-14, with the additional two years focused on critical thinking, ethics, civic responsibility, and history awareness. In college, we might focus less on STEM and skills training, and more on good citizenship. When FDR received an honorary degree at the College of William & Mary, he said: "Man must build himself more broadly... The necessities of our time demand that men avoid being set in grooves, that they avoid the occupational predestination of the older world, and that in the face of the change and development in America, they must have a sufficiently broad and comprehensive conception of the world in which they live to meet its changing problems with resourcefulness and practical vision."
But what about Americans who are not in high school or college? How do we reach them?
The New Deal's Federal Forum Project
Above: A WPA poster promoting a free Federal Forum Project gathering, ca. 1936-1941. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
In the 1930s, FDR's Commissioner of Education John Studebaker (not to be confused with the wagon and carmaker John Studebaker) called for public forums to be routinely held all across the country. These forums were events "where old and young in a community may hear qualified speakers on questions of national importance and then join in the discussion of them" ("Joining in a National Advance," The Brandon Union (Brandon, Vermont), May 6, 1938, p. 9).
Studebaker explained the rationale behind the forums: "If we are to have that trained civic intelligence, that critical open-mindedness, upon which the practical operation of a democracy must rest, we must soon take steps to establish throughout the nation an impartial, comprehensive, systematic, coordinated and completely managed system of public forums, publicly supported and publicly administered. If we are to have the intelligent public opinion upon which the public welfare depends, all adults must be provided with an opportunity to obtain the education which will enable them to gain intelligent understanding of the issues of the day" ("National Public Forums Urged by Education Chief," The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York), March 4, 1935, p. 6).
Studebaker had conducted these types of forums in Iowa, before the New Deal, and now sought to greatly expand them. And with WPA funding, he did just that. During fiscal year 1936, Studebaker and the federal Office of Education created forum demonstration centers in Manchester, New Hampshire; Morgantown, West Virginia; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Wichita, Kansas; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Santa Ana, California; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Portland, Oregon. The program was well-received by the communities. For example, in the first five months of the West Virginia program in Morgantown (which also held forums in the broader Monongalia County), there were 184 meetings attended by 7,879 people, or about 42 people per meeting (Department of Interior annual report, 1936, p. 238).
By 1939, and with an increasing emphasis on rural areas, over 500 communities had conducted public forums (also called "Adult Civic Education Forums"). 17,000 total forums had been held, and 2 million Americans participated (Department of Interior annual report, fiscal year 1939, pp. 78-80).
The "Federal Forum Project" lasted at least through 1941, but seems to have ended when America entered World War II, and apparently was not re-instituted after the war.
Today, an educational outreach program, either publicly-funded or privately-funded, and modeled after John Studebaker's public forums, could be a good way for liberal, conservative, and centrist Americans to connect with each other and discuss important issues. For example, a brief lecture on taxation or the 2nd Amendment, followed by open discussion, could be a healthier way to address modern problems than Twitter snark, Sean Hannity's nightly blather, or Marjorie Taylor Greene's constant apocalyptic warnings about "Marxist Democrats trying to take America away from you!!"
Such forums would need lecturers & moderators with extremely good people skills, and the lecture part would need to be kept brief, perhaps only one quarter or less of the amount of time devoted to group discussion.
It's worth a try, because our nation is becoming more and more divided, and in increasingly violent ways. If we want to avoid the storming of capitols, and shootings caused by anger, and conspiracy theories that have people thinking their neighbors are cannibals, perhaps we need to talk to each other more.
Above: A WPA poster, advertising a WPA-sponsored public forum in Des Moines, Iowa. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Above: Another WPA poster promoting a public forum. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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