Justice Talking debates Civics Education with Howard Zinn

Posted by on January 10, 2003

Start your new year with a healthy debate! Join the live audience of Justice Talking, on Tuesday, January 14 at the Wistar Institute, 36th and Spruce streets.

For tickets, sign up at http://www.justicetalking.org/upcoming.asp or call Erin Mooney at 215-898-7757.

Tuesday, January 14, 2003 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Civics Education: Patriotism or Skepticism?
Historian Howard Zinn, author of “A People’s History of the United States” debates former headmaster and Harvard expert on American heroes, Peter Gibbon.

After September 11th, President Bush launched a new civics education initiative that sparked an ideological battle in schools and on university campuses over whether the role of educators is to instill patriotism or teach skepticism. Conservative critics charged that left-wing academe “blamed America first.” But educators and campus activists claimed they were looking at the attacks in the context of U.S. foreign policy toward the Arab world. Should social studies curricula emphasize the contributions of Western culture or promote a more multicultural, egalitarian vision of the world?

There will be a book signing for both debaters after the taping.