We're living in an era of #TruthDecay: Americans increasingly disagree about basic facts. This can have dire consequences.

Civic education is key to reversing the course. Our new report identifies ways to spark an American civics revival. [thread]

Let's start by defining "civics." You might be thinking of lessons from your high school government class. But our research explores a much broader set of skills (e.g., critical thinking, communication) that help students engage in democracy in an active and informed way.

We recently surveyed U.S. social studies teachers to learn more about:

🏫 the state of civic education and media literacy in public schools
✏️the challenges teachers face in promoting kids' civic development
🇺🇸 ways to enhance civic learning opportunities for students.

Here are just 4 of the opportunities we identified to help promote civic development in schools:

1️⃣Think outside the textbook.

Hands-on experiences, such as school-based elections and mock trials, could be used more often to engage students and help them learn about democracy.

2️⃣Incorporate civic education into other subjects.

Many teachers said that pressure to cover other subjects was a barrier to teaching civics. But there are ways to weave civics lessons into other subjects, including language arts and math.