Civics in the Classroom: Shilo Brooks and Jeffrey Engel

This is Civics in the Classroom, a podcast series from the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Civics in the Classroom is part of the A250 Summer Teacher Seminar, America's First Principles. This program to promote innovative K-12 instruction in U.S. history and civics was designed by the Center for Presidential History with support from the U.S. Department of Education and in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. In the first year of this three-year project, our workshops and lectures will focus on the causes and context of the movement for U.S. independence and the production and legacy of its most famous document, the Declaration of Independence.  

This episode features Dr. Shilo Brooks, president and CEO of the George W. Bush Presidential Center and professor of practice in the Department of Political Science at SMU, in conversation with Dr. Jeffrey Engel, director of the Center for Presidential History. Together, they discuss their views of civics education, examine its relationship to history, and explain why understanding the country's foundational principles is crucial for developing informed and critical citizens. They'll both be joining us this June on campus for the first installment of our multi-year seminar series. In the meantime, stay tuned for more episodes of Civics in the Classroom and more conversations about the lessons that U.S. history holds for the present.  

The music for this series comes from the album K2 by Blue Dot Sessions under an Attribution-NonCommercial License. 

Transcript

SUSIE PENMAN: This is Civics in the Classroom, a podcast series from the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. I'm Susie Penman, assistant director at the Center for Presidential History. Civics in the Classroom is part of the A250 Summer Teacher Seminar, America's First Principles. This program to promote innovative K-12 instruction in U.S. history and civics was designed by the Center for Presidential History with support from the U.S. Department of Education and in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. In the first year of this three-year project, our workshops and lectures will focus on the causes and context of the movement for U.S. independence and the production and legacy of its most famous document, the Declaration of Independence.  

This episode features Dr. Shilo Brooks, president and CEO of the George W. Bush Presidential Center and professor of practice in the Department of Political Science at SMU, in conversation with Dr. Jeffrey Engel, director of the Center for Presidential History. Together, they discuss their views of civics education, examine its relationship to history, and explain why understanding the country's foundational principles is crucial for developing informed and critical citizens. They'll both be joining us this June on campus for the first installment of our multi-year seminar series. In the meantime, stay tuned for more episodes of Civics in the Classroom and more conversations about the lessons that U.S. history holds for the present.  

So Shilo and Jeff, since the summer seminar series is designed to reinvest in civics education and deepen engagement with the nation's founding principles, I wanted to begin by asking you both, when you hear civics or civics education, what comes to mind? Shilo, let's start with you.  

SHILO BROOKS: Yeah, I mean, a lot of things come to mind. I think the first thing that  

comes to mind in the context of civics is the city. I think about kind of Roman and ancient origins of the city. And I think about those citizens required to sustain the goings-on of the city. What also comes to mind are foundational principles on the basis of which self-government is made possible. I think about the duties and obligations that citizens have to their city, their community, or their country. I  also sometimes think about the eighth grade – civics class, that's a very eighth-grade term, that it's not government, it's not social studies, it's civics. And so I think about that. I think some about political polarization when I think about civics, that some people say, well, what civics means on the right is different from what civics means on the left. And so I think it's a fraught term. It's both an  ancient and a modern term. I think of civilization and its root with civics. You see what I mean. And so I just think it's a term which is so amorphous, politicized, it's the root of so many things, that I kind of don't know what civics  means. What do you think it means?  

JEFFREY ENGEL: I – listen, it means whatever the person wants it to mean at the  time, but I think similarly to you, and certainly in the context of how we use it here, that civics is all about how to prepare people to be a better citizen.  

BROOKS: Yeah.  

ENGEL: And citizenship, as you point out, is all about responsibility and all about  what you have to do to be a good member of society and to contribute to society. And I'm reminded of the, any number of maxims about this, but essentially that democracy's not supposed to be a passive thing. It's supposed to be a participatory sport. So when I think about those eighth graders – and unfortunately, increasingly those eighth graders are also our students in terms of how much they've been exposed to proper civics, in my opinion – we need to continue to give people the foundations for why democracy matters. It's not axiomatic anymore to the American electorate. It's certainly not discussed by some politicians as much as it used to be, and I really think that we need to remind our students, in particular, that they are the inheritors of something amazing, but that that's actually not inheritance in the sense of, "Guess what? You're rich now, you get to live the rest of your life fine," but “You've inherited a responsibility” as well. Yeah. And civics strikes me as the all-encompassing phrase to describe all of that.  

BROOKS: Yeah. I think – I like what you say very much, and I would only add to it, free  government is not self-perpetuating. Self-government is not, it doesn't just happen. That education is required. In other words, if we are to be our own governors in the great American spirit of self-government, we have to be enlightened governors. After all, wouldn't you want an enlightened ruler rather than an unenlightened ruler? Well, if we're to rule ourselves, then civic education is that education which would prepare us for the task, the great task of self-government. Would give us the background in terms of history, would give us a working knowledge of the laws, a notion of what the common good is and what it might require, the needs of our community, in such a way that we would be prepared to take on the role of self-government, since that is not self-perpetuating the way in a monarchy, the next in the line will perpetuate it whether you like it or not. We have to take ownership and responsibility for our own communities, and that seems to me to be what a civic education at its best would do, is make possible the perpetuation of responsible and enlightened self-government.  

ENGEL: Well and let me just pick up on one particular aspect of that, that I've been very  impressed by, I think really in the last 10 years, as there have been tremendous stresses on our political system on a local, but in particular on a federal level, I think part of what's important for a proper citizen's education, civics education, is understanding not only that the system has rules, but also that those rules need attending to. So the number of times I hear students, or the number of times I hear adults say to me, “Well, that'll never happen. It's against the law," or, "That'll never happen. It's unconstitutional," my response is always, "Yeah, but who makes that actually happen? Who's going to enforce that law? Who's going to say just because something's unconstitutional, it doesn't mean that it's impossible?" And I think that's the part which I think we need to increasingly remind people about citizenship, is that it is paying attention enough to know that we have lived in our country in remarkable prosperity and stability for the last 80 years, 100 years, keep going as long – maybe back until the early 1900s you could say this – in a way that is almost unprecedented in human history. And that stability, that kind of prosperity, while it may be stressful for us at times, while we may want the next iPhone, while we all have desires in life for more, that level of prosperity and stability is unnatural and remarkable, and it's not permanent. It can go away. It could be permanent in the sense that we have the opportunity to keep it going, but it's not self-replicating. So it's important for citizens to know that the rules that we have, the government that we have, the system we have, wasn't created for fun. It was created because the alternatives are much worse.  

PENMAN: So y'all are getting at this greater sense of concern over the decline of civics  education in the U.S. And that decline is, I think, no doubt linked, whether it's causal or not, to eroding trust in government. So can you talk a little bit more about what you think the consequences are if we don't teach our kids, our K through 12 kids, about civics? What happens?  

BROOKS: Yeah, I mean that's a really good question. I think it's probably scary what  happens. I think, as I mentioned a moment ago, if self-government is premised upon an enlightened class of rulers, and the class of rulers in a democracy is the demos, which means the people, and if that class of rulers is not enlightened I can't see how self-government perpetuates in any healthy way. There's a terrifying passage at the end of Tocqueville's Democracy in America where he envisions many different alternatives to the way America might ultimately find itself in dissolution, which is a scary thought. One of those alternatives is that Americans would become so self-interested, and Tocqueville's infinitely worried about American self-interest, that they would become so interested in their own private enterprises, whether it's money-making or just the purview of their own families and their own wellbeing – after all, democracy creates beautiful things like equality of conditions, and an equality of conditions, that permits all people to pursue to the end of their capacities the wealth that their society offers. But in Tocqueville's view, one can become engrossed and obsessed with that to the neglect of one's community and one's government. And so he says, "I envision a terrifying circumstance in which the citizens of democracy leave the caves of their self-interest only long enough to elect that ruler who will again put them in chains." And so they break their chains and go vote for that ruler who will enslave them to their own appetites, and then they go back. And so he worries that Americans will gradually lose sight of the agency they have in their own communities and their own government, become consumed with the pursuit of the ends of their appetites and the gratification of those appetites – being entertained, becoming wealthy. And that what that will mean is that the power to govern, to make laws, will be usurped by forces which they don't understand. And so I think that's a really scary kind of what he calls soft despotism, meaningwell, you vote, so it's not like hard despotism, like they're not beating you, but at the same time, you vote only so that they can then tell you what you will do.  

ENGEL: Yes.  

BROOKS: These sorts of things. So that seems to me to be –  

ENGEL: It's the illusion of democracy.  

BROOKS: Yeah – the greatest consequence, or the most terrifying consequence  of an erosion of civic education is that kind of soft despotism.  

ENGEL: Preach on. And I think two things in particular. I think first, it's important to  recognize that the type of civics education that we're trying to promote here at SMU, and that we're trying to promote at the Bush Center, and that we're trying to promote through our teacher education, is not an ultimate solution. It's not a guaranteed solution. It's not a vaccine. It doesn't guarantee success. We can teach civics education, and the democracy can still fail. But I'm quite sure it's going to fail faster if we don't. And it's important for us to recognize that, as Shilo said, we all have an investment in this, in the future of keeping that soft despotism from arising. But I also think it's important to face up to two facts, to the fact that, A, I think there's no doubt that the American people today have fewer options than they think they do when it comes to voting. We are very constrained in our political options, and that there are, as de Tocqueville warned us of, there are forces out there, and there always are going to be, that are not interested in democracy, that they're interested in their own self-interest. Groups in our society that are interested in their own self-interest, and they're perfectly willing to grow at the expense of others.  

But I think it's also important to recognize that every generation of Americans have faced this. Sometimes it's a little bit more pernicious than others. Sometimes it's a little bit more obvious than others. But our generation of Americans is not the first to say, "Have we gotten off the path of the founders? Have we gotten off the right track?" And I actually think it's rather healthy for us to ask that from time to time. Now, I will say, I wish we spent more time thinking about it, by which I mean – listen, I'm a historian, and I'm an American historian, and I'm an American enthusiast beyond belief. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not sure why we have any time – having our children learn math and science and other things. They should just read de Tocqueville and we're good. I realize that's a little bit unrealistic, but I do know that we're not spending enough time in our current education on reminding students, not in a prescriptive way, why they need to be living in a democratic society, but why they should want to live in a democratic society.  

PENMAN: Shilo, you mentioned earlier civics being a polarizing term.  

BROOKS: Yeah.  

PENMAN: Can we talk a little bit more about that, about civics as a tool to – maybe  unite is too idealistic of a word, but at least bring people to the table instead of divide us? Because I think you're right. I think we hear civics now, we hear that word, and we think of, you're on one side or another.  

BROOKS: Yeah. Yeah, I think – this is interesting. What I had in mind there, and I  think you're right to say the two notions, roughly competing notions with some overlap, ought to be brought together in order to have a holistic definition of civics. So on the right, intellectually, you'll hear civics mentioned in the context of the study of America's founding history and principles, the great primary source documents. That's what it means to think and study civically, is to take seriously the great principles on the basis of which the regime was founded. Read the Federalist Papers, the Constitution, the Declaration, the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Acquaint yourself with America's purpose as it was understood when it was founded and as it survived through its greatest trials. But on the left, there's not necessarily hostility to that, but there's a greater emphasis than on the right on activism, civic activism and engagement, meaning in the great tradition of Dr. King. If the regime is unjust, go and do something about it. It's not just about reading books now. It's about going and being active in your community. And I think a holistic notion of civics would have both of those things in it. It would be an acquaintance with the principles on the basis of which the country was founded, being able to identify its highest ideals – the notion, in the case of civil rights, that all men are created equal – and then being able to go out and engage the community in such a way as to make those things real.  

And so I don't think there has to be necessarily this division. And I think that the study of the founding documents in particular can be uniting because what they permit students to do is to look at the best that's been thought and said, take sides in debates, the Anti-Federalists and the Federalists, Lincoln and Douglas, Pacificus-Helvidius, and make arguments on the basis of merits, and think for yourself about what you think is right, and be guided by your own reason and your own lights to the conclusion about what's best for the nation and for the common good. And so I think that's the way civics can unite, is that it engage – it, it invites us all to engage in a related term, civil discourse, which means that we exchange reasons, arguments, evidence. We take high thought seriously. We don't compel agreement, but we try to find it through reason. That's something, no matter if you're on the left, if you're on the right, that's the way you get to truth. That's the way you get to what's good and right and just. And so I think if you can set a tone in your classroom by using the right readings and the right documents and inviting people to have a complex conversation and disagree using those instruments of arguments, reasons, and evidence, that's the best way to model civil discourse of the kind that's needed to both give rise to good civic engagement and activism and just a good government.  

ENGEL: I love what you just said, and I think it's extraordinarily important because it  reminds us that as citizens, we're not kings and we're not an aristocracy. So the first step in some ways of being a citizen is recognizing that you're not perfect and that you can be flawed, and that you have to listen to other people's opinions because they sometimes are right. And I would love to hear your opinion on this. People listening to this should know that Shilo's arrival on SMU's campus has spirited and invigorated the discussion of political philosophy on our campus in a way that I've loved and has reinvigorated my own career. So I want to ask, I’m curious what you would respond to this, that you and I spend a lot of time talking about the founders. We study the founders. We respect the founders, in some ways maybe even venerate the founders. There are two things I think that are in tension in our society today. The first is that we love our constitution, and we are very proud of the fact that it is the longest-used constitution in the world today. Period. New sentence. I don't want to drive the oldest car. I don't want to have the oldest medicine. I don't want to have the oldest plane. So there's a part of me, whenever I hear someone point out hubristically and with great passion, and usually with great pride, that we have the longest Constitution in the world, I think, well, that suggests it's time for a revision. 

BROOKS: Yeah.  

ENGEL: And obviously, there is a revision component within the Constitution, but maybe a real, real rethinking of the Constitution, and I don't quite know how to square those two ideas, because I think they're both true at the same time.  

BROOKS: Yeah. I'm of the school of thought that it's not necessarily true – it can be true – it's not necessarily true that new things are good things. And by that, I mean it's not impossible for me to believe that the ancient Greeks discovered some truth, let's say, that – Aristotle knew something very profound, let's say, about politics, an insight whose substance and truth hasn't been surpassed since that moment, such that political things don't operate the same way the natural sciences do, where the newest insights are usually the truer insights in physics and chemistry. It's conceivable to me that in the human things, the older things could be truer than newer things –  

ENGEL: That's true. 

BROOKS: Because they're not – the science of politics is not in every sense progressive in  the way that the natural sciences are, as we get new instruments and we get new, these sorts of things. We always have the same instrument, in a way, with the science of politics, which is the human being. And so from my point of view, the Constitution can be defended on those grounds, that yes, it's old, but it's not – I’m open to the idea that it needs revision, but it's not prima facie, like immediately true to me that's the case, because I think the Constitution – what's unique about it is it was given to us by people who were certainly flawed but who were very deep and wise people, who came on the scene in a moment of history that was utterly unique, in a moment where Americans were uniquely receptive to such a thing as a constitutional convention. In other words, you can't just have a constitutional convention every Tuesday. There was, in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, you're a historian more than me, there was a mood and a moment that made such a thing possible that's not possible every day, and it, nor would it be possible, say, I always ask people, “If we were to rewrite the Constitution today, who would you want at the convention?” That's very difficult to say. Much more difficult – who would be the Madison, the Washington, the Hamilton?  

ENGEL: Just to reinforce that point, one of the most significant points I remember my  college advisor making – a historian obviously – is he said, the only time in American history, this revolutionary constitutional period is the only time in American history where the political elite and the intellectual elite – 

BROOKS: There you go.  

ENGEL: – were the same people.  

BROOKS: Perfect. Yeah.  It's a very difficult thing. And so my view is of two, two ways on  this. I've emphasized that the old ways are, in a way, the good ways, largely because the people who were there, it was an extraordinary generation, that the moment in history was ripe for the making of such a thing. That's not to say, however, that the thing is perfect. As we know from the Civil Rights Movement, and just the mere possibility of constitutional amendment, that those men themselves thought that they were perfect and doing it right, because they didn't. And so I completely agree with, and sympathize with, and want to emphasize the importance of the need to be able to renovate. What I don't say is completely destroy and refound, but to renovate our government. This goes back to an extraordinary debate between Jefferson and Madison, because there's this famous letter that Jefferson writes to Madison and he says, “Constitution should be torn up every 19 years." And he says, and he does some back-of-the-napkin math, and he’s like, “Well, every 19 years there's essentially a new generation alive, and if we're really serious about self-government, then shouldn't every generation be able to govern themselves and write their own constitution?"  

And Madison says, “Well, I hear what you're saying about self-government and every 19 years, but the problem is, in order for constitutions to have an effect, for the law to be respected, it has to be venerated. And what's old is venerated. And so if we tear it up every 19 years, the weight of the thing won't sit as it would if it were ancient, and the ancient laws give the laws authority.” And he, and then Madison points out all kinds of other practical problems, like what if we had contracted debts and we had created a new regime, and we had dissolved the Constitution, and who would pay those – aren't there contracts that we would make? And Madison, the great practical mind. But what it shows you is that from the beginning of the founding, two of the greatest, arguably the two greatest intellectual lights, as you mentioned, are in disagreement about whether a constitution should be perpetual or whether it should be torn up every 19 years. And so I think there are all sorts of ways in which the legislature and the Supreme Court are responsible, and the American public, are responsible for renovating the Constitution.  

ENGEL: And I'm struck, I love that analogy, or example, and I'm struck by the insight it  gives into both characters. As you point out, Madison is eminently practical at the end of the day. And I've always thought when Jefferson discussed the fact that we need to have a new constitution every 19 years, and that the tree of liberty needs to be refreshed with the blood of – 

BROOKS: Yeah. Of patriots.  

ENGEL: Of patriots. Thank you. Every generation or so. I've always thought that that's the kind of statement that could only be made by a person who was born at the top of society and expected to always be at the top of society. If he really thought that his position was going to be uprooted in some way by one of those revolutions, he would've been a little bit less enthusiastic. But Jefferson, say what you will, Jefferson had confidence in being Jefferson.  

BROOKS: Yeah, and the spirit was right. Jefferson had this concern that self-government  does require that the people alive not be governed by the dead. And so I think that's the great challenge that your question really gets at the essence of, is how do we both ensure the veneration of those good things while making sure that contemporary citizens feel like they are responsible for their own political fate? And that's been built into the challenge from the very beginning.  

PENMAN: Sort of a concluding question, because the summer seminar is geared towards  K through 12 teachers – do y'all have any examples from your own early education of teachers who addressed civics in a way that was particularly memorable, meaningful?  

ENGEL: My 12th grade European history teacher in particular, he made us, after we read  

about Martin Luther, he made us do the Martin Luther experiment, which is to stand up in front of the class, you had time to prep for this, stand up in front of the class and say, "This is what I believe. Here I stand, I can do no other. This is what I believe." And then everyone else had the opportunity to pick you apart. And I probably thought I was a pretty savvy, smart 12th grader, as most 12th graders do. And I lasted all of 30 seconds on what I thought was absolutely fundamentally true before people started picking it apart. I was like, "Oh, that's a good point. That's also a good point." And I think that was a really great lesson in how history can be used as an antidote to hubris  

BROOKS: Yeah, that's a beautiful lesson. I think for me, I can recall a history teacher  

who – he was a young man. I think it was his first year out of college. And it was around eighth or ninth grade. And what shocked me about that particular class, and I think that class is in some ways responsible for what I've gone on to do in the most nascent sense, is that he would encourage us not to rely on textbooks. And I don't know that you could get away with that now. I'm not a teacher in the public school system. But he would Xerox for us copies of what I considered at the time real history books. Books you'd find on the shelf in a bookstore. And it was the first time in my formal education where I felt like I wasn't being given something that had been kind of pre-prepared for me. And it felt transgressive. We would read excerpts from masterworks of history on the Second World War or the Civil War, and we'd watch documentaries. And so I just thought, "This is my first access to what adult consideration of the past looks like." It didn't feel curated. It didn't feel artificial. And I think him encouraging me to think like an adult – and in a way I didn't deserve it. I was in eighth or ninth grade. But him not pandering to me, and presuming that classroom would be capable of handling those texts at our eighth or ninth grade reading levels, and I'm sure he selected them judiciously, and talking to us as though we were going to be citizens and we should be informed, and we shouldn't just keep the soft gloves on, but that this was stuff that you needed to really learn about and read, and that there was a whole world of intellectual inquiry out there in volumes of books written by scholars that I had no idea, I mean no idea, and to taste a little bit of Shelby Foote or to taste a little bit of a great volume on the Second World War meant the world to me because it was so much more arresting than what I was getting. So that is a moment I'll never forget.  

ENGEL: That's really good.  

PENMAN: Well thank you all so much. We look forward to you being here and  participating in the summer seminar, so thanks.  

BROOKS: Thank you.  

ENGEL: Thank you for your time.