Diary of a Word Nerd: We cannot neglect civic knowledge (copy)
As we honor the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country – even the King of England came to celebrate- I pose an important question: Do you know where the following words come from?
“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them…”
If you guessed they are from The Constitution, you are close, but incorrect. If you guessed the Magna Carta, way off.
If you guessed The Declaration of Independence, congrats! You know your historical documents! These words comprise a (very long, dare I say, run on) sentence that serves as the preamble to The Declaration of Independence. This document, written by Thomas Jefferson, marked the beginning of the colonists’ separation from England in 1776 and sparked the founding of the nation that we live in today.
Yet, recently, when I read a similar question to high school students participating in an academic competition, none of them could name the document that contains these words. Nor did they know how many US Senators there are. But before you judge our educational system, I challenge you to turn a critical lens on yourself. I see the students’ lack of knowledge as a symptom of a broader problem, a deeper void within our community and country at large.
In our recent decades of peace and growth in the United States, we Americans have become complacent. We have forgotten the importance of civic knowledge and have abandoned the civic duty required for a self-governed nation to function effectively. Simply put, not enough of us understand how our government institutions work. And that ignorance could lead to chaos.
Our Founding Fathers knew that a country established by and for the people needed to have educated citizens. The US Postal Service actually started because government leaders wanted a way for all Americans to have access to information. And yet, these days, so many of us are either so disgusted by political partisanship and government inefficiency or complacent about freedoms that we have turned our backs on the very institutions that give us that freedom. If we continue to indulge this apathy, we may lose what we cherish as citizens.
To prove my point, I’m sharing just a few questions from our current US Citizenship Test. Take a minute to assess your civic knowledge. Do you know the answers to these questions:
1. How many amendments does the Constitution have?
2. What are two rights described in the Declaration of Independence?
3. How many U.S. Senators are there?
4. We elect a U.S. Senator for how many years?
5. The House of Representatives has how many voting members?
6. We elect a U.S. Representative for how many years?
7. Name your U.S. Representative.
8. If the President and Vice President can no longer serve, who becomes the President?
These questions relate only to national government. As local media outlets deteriorate and we have the most access to national news, our knowledge of state and local government lessens. How do we know what the Virginia General Assembly is doing? Or, more importantly, what is in our local government budget? Many people I interact with in our community do not know who is on the Board of Supervisors or the Town Council. They don’t pay attention to who is enacting local policy and what those policies are. When voting season starts, they don’t know who is running, much less where to vote.
We’ve got to do better than this. I’m not asking everyone to get into the weeds of policy. I don’t expect people to care about the infighting and squabbles among politicians. But it’s a good idea for everyone to understand how laws are made and who makes them. To pay attention to how local and state governments spend money. And to have basic understanding of issues and participate in elections. That means finding unbiased, reliable sources for information to consult on a regular basis. That means seeking out information from places besides social media or your next-door neighbor.
Our freedom depends on it.
Answers to the questions above:
1. 27
2. Life, Liberty, or the Pursuit of Happiness
3. 100
4. 6
5. 435
6. 2
7. https://www.house.gov/representatives
8. The Speaker of the House
Julia Tomiak lives in Wythe County and posts regularly about words and more at her site, Diary of a Word Nerd. She is also the At Large Member of the Wythe County School Board.
