Educators throughout the country have long understood the value of teaching about the United States Constitution. State education leaders have enhanced the significance of that instruction by giving it a prominent place in the key documents that guide teachers in public schools—learning standards.
Learning standards define the knowledge and skills of educational objectives—what students should know and be expected to do at specific levels of education (grades K, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) or after completing a course (for example, U.S. government, biology, calculus, French II, or World Literature). Every five years or so standards go through a public process of research, development, writing, public comment, and state approval. It is useful to know what standards are not. Standards do not describe teaching practices or assessments. Standards are part of (but do not entirely encompass) a curriculum, which also includes the lessons teachers teach, their assignments, and the materials used by both teachers and students.
State standards documents often organize Social Studies content into four strands—history, geography, economics, and civics/government. The latter category focuses upon the functions and purposes of local, state, and federal government. That strand also emphasizes what it means to be a citizen of the United States. The centerpiece of U.S. citizenship is the United States Constitution. The U.S. Constitution defines citizenship. It gives citizens an understanding of their responsibilities. Most importantly, the U.S. Constitution codifies the rights of citizens and guarantees their freedoms.
Well-written state standards do not limit the study of the U.S. Constitution to the civics/government strand.
The history strand includes standards that explain how the U.S. Constitution came to be: the setting of early nationhood and the move to replace the Articles of Confederation with a plan of government that would enable the new country to respond more effectively to the problems it faced. The history strand also includes standards about the influential documents that came before the U.S. Constitution, such as the Declaration of Independence and the English Bill of Rights.
Other history standards cover the leaders of various factions within the Constitutional Convention and their stands on key issues, as well as the ratification process, the role of the Federalist Papers in that ratification, the Bill of Rights, the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution by leaders within the three branches of government, influential cases of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.S. Constitution’s pervasive influence throughout U.S. history.
Well-written state standards documents also include standards on the U.S. Constitution within the economics strand. These standards lay out the U.S. Constitution’s role in describing the powers of constituent branches of government in the areas of taxation, trade, and interstate commerce. The standards also define how the U.S. Constitution allows for free markets and sets forth principles of freedom that primed the U.S. economic engine for worldwide leadership.
State Social Studies standards that are outside the realm of U.S. History and Government courses also provide opportunities for students to study the U.S. Constitution. These standards offer the opportunity for comparative studies of the U.S. Constitution:
• in World History courses that delve into the development of ancient codes of law;
• in European History courses that trace the revolutionary fervor of France and the writing of the Declaration of the Rights of Man;
• in African history courses that follow the independence movements on the continent;
• in political science courses that outline the advance of socialism and communism in Eastern Europe and Asia.
Even cross-curricular standards—that are seemingly beyond the purview of students of the U.S. Constitution—provide ways to investigate the document. English Language Arts state standards and those within the controversial Common Core State Standards Initiative call for the reading of informational (non-literary) text. These standard describe ways for students to analyze text, cite textual evidence, determine the meaning of words and phrases, and integrate knowledge and ideas. The U.S. Constitution would be fertile ground for that kind of study.
Similarly, students can employ writing standards that include the writing of arguments and the writing of informative/explanatory texts. What better subject matter to meet those standards than the U.S. Constitution?
Therefore, the flexibility of teaching the U.S. Constitution even extends to the standards that guide instruction in English and Literature classes. The variety of standards that align instruction with the content of the U.S. Constitution demonstrates that teachers can utilize numerous approaches to teaching the document—all to the betterment of their students who gain knowledge and understanding of our founding document.
• Christian Garcia is President of Garcia Publishing Company, Inc. Also, he is currently serving as editor of the Freedom in America Series and social studies content specialist for Essentials in Education, a provider of quality educational products. For more information, please see www.constitutioncurriculum.org.
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