Teaching America: Reflective Patriotism in Schools, College, and Culture by Paul O. Carrese

In Teaching America, Paul Carrese offers an intellectual justification for reviving a reflective and discursive approach to civic education. He explores why civic education is crucial for sustaining our democratic republic and explains how a sober, yet hopeful, civics is vital to both civic learning and perpetuating the American experiment. Blending gratitude for America with civil argument about what America means, Carrese implores educators to explore civics informed by rational patriotism. In this Tocquevillean approach, civil disagreement is a feature, not a failing, of our constitutional democracy. He argues that schools, colleges, and culture must develop citizens with the knowledge and virtues to operate our civic order, seeing self-government as crucial for pursuit of happiness. Using a portrait of jazz as an American e pluribus unum this compelling case provides a hopeful renewal of civics and civic friendship needed across formal learning and civic culture.