Bernard Crick

Suppose one had to construct a curriculum for school pupils to learn to be citizens? What would follow from this way of thinking?

I did not weary with Aristotelian presuppositions the British government committee I chaired on the citizenship curriculum. I had to be very practical. But I am not sure if all my colleagues grasped that behind any pretence to be purely practical there lurks a theory or a doctrine. Right from the beginning in constructing a curriculum one has to presume that we are living in a society which contains different codes of morality and also different interests, and that it was or would be the practices and processes of citizenship itself that could hold them together peaceably and by consent, even if never by perfect agreement. The aim of political life may not be to determine a single ideal of the good and then ask the state to impose it (even your ideal or my ideal), but rather to contrive how different ideas can coexist in peace with some mutual understanding and respect.

My committee boldly declared without much philosophical debate (I mean without any):

We aim at no less than a change in the political culture of this country both nationally and locally: for people to think of themselves as active citizens, willing, able and equipped to have an influence in public life and with the critical capacities to weigh evidence before speaking and acting; to build on and to extend radically to young people the best in existing traditions of community involvement and public service, and to make them individually confident in finding new forms of involvement and action among themselves.

But how to achieve such a change? The report recommended three strands of learning, based, of course, on the holy trinity of educationalists: knowledge, skills and values. They were: social and moral responsibility, community involvement, and political literacy – a far cry from old “civics” as teaching facts about an alleged British constitution and the remaining powers of local government. To be politically literate certainly implies some general knowledge of what are the political, social and economic institutions of our locality, our country and the world as it effects us; and some broad notion of how they work. But it also implies learning the skills and values needed for active citizenship. Even the knowledge component is best learnt not by being taught from the front, so often the primrose path to ever-lasting shut-eared boredom, but by introducing such knowledge when the need to know arises in discussion of real issues and problems. Discussion was the very origin and the continuing essence of citizenship and democracy; and I can think of no real discussions of political issues or problems that do not raise both practical and moral issues. But can and should teaching citizenship do so?

Let me give two examples of how the principles of a report appear in the statutory order. The order for Key Stage 3 (that is for 11-14 year olds) contains nine brief sentences under the first of three headings “Knowledge and Understanding”. Then follow two more headings.

Developing skills of inquiry and communication

Pupils should be taught to: (a) think about topical political, spiritual, moral, social and cultural issues, problems and events by analysing information and its sources, including ICT-based sources; (b) justify orally and in writing a personal opinion about such issues, problems or events; and (c) contribute to group and exploratory class discussions, and take part in debates.

Developing skills of participation and responsible action

Pupils should be taught to: (a) use their imagination to consider other people's experiences and be able to think about, express and explain views that are not their own; (b) negotiate, decide and take part responsibly in both school and community based activities; and (c) reflect on the process of participating.

Notice that there is neither specification about what are the “issues, problems or events” to be discussed, nor about what form participation “in both school and community” shall take. In the very nature of free citizenship it was judged not right for either the government or its agencies to give precise prescriptions on politically and morally sensitive matters. Government should neither prescribe how best to discuss issues nor what issues to discuss. The devil may be in the detail but detail should be kept at arm's length from the state. In the very nature of learning for citizenship (which is, after all, somewhat concerned with enhancing freedom) there must be local discretion. Hence David Blunkett called the new curriculum (unlike all the others) “a light touch order”, or what I glossed as “strong, bare bones”.

To act freely among others must, of course, imply acting responsibly; just as there is a distinction between having rights and exercising them in a moral and responsible way. The report said that the concept of responsibility is both moral and political because it implies: firstly, care for others; secondly, premeditation and calculation about what effect actions are likely to have on others; and thirdly (and too often forgotten) understanding and care for the consequences – especially if our actions do not achieve the intended consequences.

So what kind of moral philosophy should inform a citizenship curriculum? Some would say, none at all. They would call themselves “realists”, telling us not to be deluded: politics is basically only and all about these differences of power and interest – who gets what, when and how; always a matter of “conflict”. Hard-nosed political scientists would accept at least half of St Augustine's analysis: that any justice in the earthly city is simply self-interest. States hold together for the same reason that bands of robbers hold together: self-love and mutual interest. Others call themselves, or more often are called, “idealists” and say that politics is basically about doing what is right: “where there is no vision the people perish” or “let justice be done though the heavens fall”' (as is most surprisingly written over the main door of the Old Bailey); and some say that there is no basis to judge what is right without religious belief – not always making clear whether any religion will do or whether they have a specific one in mind.

But beware, as ever, of the fallacy of the excluded middle. It is possible to reject both: realism for not allowing altruism and sociability; and idealism for being prone to dangerous chimeras of human perfectibility and compulsion. One does not have to be a Christian to hold a tender scepticism (or humility) about human perfectibility.

So don't exclude the middle for a third school says that morality in politics is about reaching some consensus or agreement about civic procedures; it is about procedural values not absolute values; it is about the institutional conditions of peace and justice, not about the very nature of peace and justice themselves: political institutions should build a ring and hold it fairly in which all corners can debate and attempt to get their way without violence. (Well, nearly all corners; not those who try to smash up the ring – as even John Stuart Mill agreed). I myself am obviously of this third school, a politique . Those who attempt to impose religious values on others through either the state or the practice or the teaching of citizenship may damage their own values more than they achieve a benign effect.

Moral generalities mean little until they become moral judgements on particulars. We infer the reality of the rule from instances. Certainly children do: to them rules learnt by rote are easily discredited by frequent examples of contrary behaviour by teachers, parents or those prominent in public life. Imitation, or let me be pretentious and say “mimesis”, is the greatest of social mechanisms, for good or for evil. That is why, I believe (on grounds that I hope I have explained and that my committee adopted out of common sense) that citizenship, both as a practice and as part of education, should focus on participative activities and discussion of issues, problems and events; neither the learning of lists of values nor of the functions of institutions.

Consider only the first term of the three strands of the actual citizenship curriculum: social and moral responsibility. It is a poor and incomplete self that is not social. Morality is not the individual purity of standing aside with clean hands: it is responsible interaction with the problems of others. Our very self is a construct of how others see and react to us, which itself is a construct of how we see others, and how we are equipped to react to others. Is that not a true aim of education to be brought to recognise this? To be a good and active citizen is even helpful to the self.

Sir Bernard Crick is emeritus professor at Birkbeck College, University of London, and has chaired committees and advised the UK government on citizenship and the school curriculum