Stephen Morris

Civic Education Must Teach America’s Promise Alongside Its Failures

Stephen Morris argues that civic education must restore Americans’ knowledge of the country’s history, including both its achievements and its failures. He says a weakening civic memory leaves young people less able to understand the gap between the nation’s founding ideals and people’s lived experience, or to take part in addressing it. Morris presents reflective study and community engagement as ways to prepare citizens to carry forward the country’s unfinished civic work.