Methodology

Learning through experience means learning citizenship by acting as a citizen. In a functioning democracy, citizens digest and use information, debate, hold each other and political representatives accountable, and work together to solve problems. Close Up’s approach is to model and practice these democratic functions in the classroom. We create conditions that stimulate the students’ own powers of problem-solving, acquiring and using information, communicating and cooperating with others, experimenting, and thinking creatively and critically.

“The only true education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situation in which he finds himself.”

—John Dewey, My Pedagogic Creed

The political landscape of the United States is not static; it is constantly reconstructed as politicians, members of the media, social movements, and citizens change and shape the public agenda. In order to be effective citizens in this dynamic climate, students need to move beyond memorization and repetition of facts. To that aim, Close Up helps students become active, rather than passive, participants in their own learning through joint projects and collective problem-solving. We encourage students to access prior knowledge in their attempts to learn new information and concepts, and to use and master key information, concepts, and skills.

“To teach is not to transfer knowledge but to create the possibilities for the production or construction of knowledge.”

—Paulo Freire, The Pedagogy of Freedom

The two ideas that underlie cooperative learning are: (1) “Learning is something that students do, not something that is done to them”; (2) learning is essentially a social enterprise. Together, these two ideas highlight the dual intentions of cooperative learning: individual students cooperate in their own learning; each student cooperates with others in a shared effort to master concepts and skills appropriate to the subject of study. More specifically, cooperative learning refers to the instructional practice of having students work together to achieve the learning goals of a lesson. Close Up employs small-group work, jigsaw activities, debates and deliberations, and other formal and informal cooperative learning structures that allow students to explore important content while also practicing key skills for democratic citizenship.

“Cooperative experiences are not a luxury. They are an absolute necessity for the healthy social development of individuals who can function independently. … [They are] essential for developing pluralistic values.”

—David W. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson, What Makes Cooperative Learning Work

There are so many issues facing citizens at the local, state, and national levels that merely keeping track of all issues—let alone comprehending them—can be daunting. Yet, ultimately in a democracy it is the job of the citizen to understand pressing political issues, to have and express opinions on those issues, and to be able to offer reasons to support those opinions. It is for this reason that Close Up centers its approach to civic education on issues. The challenges facing citizens and policymakers are also the challenges that students are asked to grapple with in the classroom.

“If teachers want to prepare students for effective and responsible democratic citizenship, they must challenge students to confront issues of public policy in the classroom.”

—Thomas Vontz and William Nixon, Issue-Centered Civic Education in Middle Schools

Schools serve as one of the few spaces in which people from diverse backgrounds come together. As such, schools provide an important opportunity for citizens to hear different perspectives and grapple productively across lines of political difference. To build on the diversity that is naturally present in classrooms, Close Up’s materials and methodology focus on providing students with multiple perspectives through readings, quotes from political experts and elected officials, and specific instructional practices. We attempt to expose students to a wide range of views that are present in American political life.

“[There] are places where multiple social perspectives and personal values are brought into face-to-face contact around matters that ‘are relevant to the problems of living together,’ as Dewey put it. These are mutual, collective concerns, not mine or yours but ours. These arise in public places—places such as schools.”

—Walter Parker, Social Studies Today: Research and Practice

Dating back to the era of Thomas Jefferson, one of most durable themes in American education is the deep connection between democratic self-government and education. From Jefferson to Diana Hess, from Horace Mann to Amy Gutmann, from John Dewey to the most recent report from the Civic Mission of Schools, American scholars, educators, and statesmen have dreamed that we might design a system and style of education that would serve as the very crucible for enacting democracy, extending its ambit, and enriching our understanding of how it may be accomplished. For Close Up methodology, this influence reminds us that our aim is not to teach students about democracy, politics, and citizenship, but to prepare them to do democracy, politics, and citizenship. Thus, all programs, lessons, and materials that we develop are designed and evaluated with the following question in mind: Does this inspire and empower our students for active engagement in democratic society?

“The objects of this … education determine its character and limits. These objects are, To give to every citizen the information he needs; To enable him to … express and preserve his ideas … ; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; To know his rights [and] to exercise [them] with order and justice … To instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests and duties, as men and citizens, being then the objects of education in the primary school.”

—Thomas Jefferson, Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia