\u201cTo be a good member of your community, you really have to understand why people do the things that they do,\u201d says Bryan Little, who teaches both on-level Government and AP Government at McPherson High School in McPherson, Kansas. \u201cThat\u2019s why good teaching about citizenship involves students in an intentional study of human behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n
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For Little, government class entails \u201cconstitutional study and human behavior study side by side.\u201d Little\u2019s study in the Master of Arts in American History and Government<\/a> (MAHG) program prompted him to think carefully about how the Constitution\u2019s structure reflects the founders\u2019 understanding of typical human behavior, or what they called \u201chuman nature.\u201d Documents from the founding reveal the framers\u2019 acute awareness that human self-interest inclines those in politics to exploit any opportunity to gain power. For this reason, as James Madison wrote in Federalist<\/em> 51<\/a>, the design of American government connects \u201cthe interest\u201d of each public official to \u201cthe constitutional rights\u201d of his office. This, Madison argued, ensures that each branch of government guards against encroachments by the other branches.<\/p>\n After Little\u2019s students read an excerpt of Federalist<\/em> 51, he asks them whether Madison\u2019s view of human nature is correct. \u201cThat\u2019s not something I would have thought to ask students before MAHG,\u201d Little says.<\/p>\n Little also uses games to prompt reflection on human behavior. \u201cMy favorite is an exercise I borrowed from a trainer ten or fifteen years ago,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s called \u201cPrimitive Politics<\/a>.\u201d Each \u00a0student gets a stack of fake money, places $10 in a central pool, and then bids on a chance to win all the money there. Whatever a player bids is forfeited to the central pool, unless his bid is highest\u2014in which case he wins the pool.\u201d The game proceeds in successive rounds, with a pay-out at the end of each. \u201cEarly on, a player says, \u2018I\u2019m gonna put my whole pile in\u2014Yay! I won!\u2019 Then in the next round two or three of them decide to work together, gaining advantages. Players may also propose rules that players vote on\u2014some practical, some just for revenge.\u201d After the game ends, \u201cwe unpack the reasons why players did what they did.\u201d Students talk about the winners\u2019 behavior. Most succeed through communicating and cooperating well with others. Perhaps this game teaches a less pessimistic view of human behavior than Madison\u2019s.<\/p>\n Another game would seem to confirm Madison\u2019s view. It explores a vice in our political system\u2014gerrymandering\u2014that the founders did not manage to prevent. Students are assigned to either an X team or an O team, then given cards on which a series of Xs and Os are arranged in a grid. Told to draw district lines around adjacent letters, they draw reasonable boundaries at first. Little then tells them to repeat the exercise, this time designing districts that give their team as much electoral advantage as possible. They learn it is quite easy to do this. Afterwards, they examine successive iterations of the district maps for Kansas, talking about demographic data in each period that probably led party leaders to redraw the lines.<\/p>\n Today, political pundits don\u2019t mention the founders\u2019 thinking about human nature when\u00a0 discussing Americans\u2019 electoral choices. They talk about correlations between demographic data and voting patterns. Little pushes students to analyze demographic data \u201cintelligently.\u201d Political analysts use data to locate the \u201cnudge factors\u201d that move a group of citizens to vote one way or another. Little asks his students, \u201cIs this correlation a coincidence? Or is there a causal relationship?\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this year he taught a lesson on political socialization. \u201cLet\u2019s analyze the factors that cause groups of people to trend in one political direction or the other,\u201d he said. Students \u00a0generated a list of demographic factors presumed to influence voting choices\u2014age, gender, ethnic group, occupation, education level, religious affiliation. Little wrote the list on the board, then placed \u00a0next to it laminated photos of citizens whose genders, features, dress styles, etc., suggested the demographic categories in which they fit. Students guessed the political orientation of each citizen.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Then, as a last example, I put a big picture of my face on the board, and I said, \u2018Okay, analyze the demographic data for this person.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cStudents said, \u2018You\u2019re an old white guy.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Okay, where does that trend?\u2019 I asked.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018But you teach,\u2019 a student said.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018All right,\u2019 I said, \u2018where does that trend?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Are you from Kansas?\u2019 another asked.<\/p>\n \u201cBy the time we got to the end of the analysis, students said, \u2018None of the data helped!\u2019<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Perfect!\u2019 I replied. \u2018Data offers indicators, but it doesn\u2019t say for sure how things are going to work. People are more than data points. They are complex animals. Their decisions are not based exclusively on their situations.\u201d<\/p>\n Little\u2019s students find it more productive to trace the influences on their own political orientation. They take an online \u201cpolitical compass\u201d test to figure out their political views. Their test results place them at various locations on a graph divided into four quadrants by two axes: one for social issues, with \u201clibertarian\u201d at the extreme left and \u201cauthoritarian\u201d at the extreme right; the other for economic policy, with \u201cleft\u201d and \u201cright\u201d marking the end points.<\/p>\n \u201cMost years, students call out to me when the test delivers its results: \u2018Sir? My test\u2019s broken\u2014it put me on the wrong team!\u2019 And I reply, \u2018Maybe you put yourself on the wrong team!\u2019\u201d This year, however, there were fewer such cases. Many students saw their results and recognized not only their accuracy but also the family and social influences that fostered their opinions. \u201cThey did some really nice, very short, but very analytical writing on where their ideologies are coming from. They were very thoughtful, maybe more so than usual.\u201d<\/p>\n Why did students this fall take the self-analysis so seriously? Little speculates that the election campaign made them curious. They wondered, \u201cWhy are the adults going out of their minds over this election?\u201d They themselves occupy less fixed positions than their elders. \u201cThey\u2019re not entirely sure what they think or why they think it. But the election made them aware that their political views matter.\u201d<\/p>\n All citizens need to think not only about the sources of their own opinions; they need to think about the founders\u2019 opinions, and how our constitutional system reflects their understanding of human behavior. \u201cThis is true for both conservatives and liberals,\u201d Little said. \u201cThe conservative who wants to maintain the current structure of government needs to know why that structure exists. The liberal who wants to change aspects of that structure needs know why they\u2019re not working the way they were intended to work.\u201d<\/p>\n Some changes in our political system have produced results no one intended. Little recalled a Sunday evening lecture given in the MAHG residential program this past summer. Professor Joseph Postell<\/a> told the history of our political party system. Parties formed even though the framers did not expect them to. The parties provided mechanisms for moderating the bills that passed in Congress and for filtering out extremist or obviously unqualified office-seekers. Electoral reforms, including the introduction of party primaries, weakened these mechanisms. Then the introduction of TV cameras in congressional chambers allowed junior legislators to subvert the authority of party leaders even further. Politics became more performative than constructive. \u201cPostell led with the thesis that we need stronger parties,\u201d Little recalled. \u201cEverybody in the room\u2014we\u2019re all social studies teachers who feel we\u2019re experts in history\u2014we all thought, \u2018No, that\u2019s stupid.\u2019 Yet by Friday, everybody was saying, \u2018Yeah, he\u2019s on to something.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Asked what he hoped his students understood to be the greatest threat to the continuity of self-government, Little replied, \u201cHopefully, us! People are the weakest part of the whole process.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I tell students about a book I read, Fears of a Setting Sun<\/em><\/a>, by Dennis Rasmussen.<\/em> He describes a feeling of pessimism that overtook the founders as they aged. They were saying to each other, \u2018Well, guys, it\u2019s been a good run. We thought self-government would work, but here we are.\u2019 And here we still are, 250 years later.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nGames that Reveal Human Nature<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"gerrymandering,](\"https:\/\/teachingamericanhistory.org\/content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/gerrymander.pdf.jpeg\")
Human Nature Vs. Data Collection<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Helping Students Discover Their Own Political Views<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Human Nature and Political Development<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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