The superintendent of Brunswick, Maine is recommending the creation of a new civics and government course in the wake of Donald Trump’s election.
Superintendent Paul Perzanoski wrote to students, parents, staff, and members of the community that “trepidation over the results of the national election appear to be at the forefront of people’s thoughts.”
Perzanoski implied that Trump’s election will have a negative impact on diversity and that a civics course was necessary since Trump won because of the apathy of a significant number of American voters.
He continued in his letter:
Through the dissemination of information reported over the last five plus weeks, it’s clear that we will have to prepare for a possible return to past ideas as a matter of proposed policy changes. It is also clear that we as a nation can no longer be apathetic about our attention to the politics of the United States and we must have faith in the checks and balances of our government’s structure.
Perzanoski added the results of the recent national election means “that we have to increase our knowledge and our children’s knowledge about how our national, state and local governments work and who the people are who hold those positions.”
“In the coming months, I will be convening a group of educators to discuss the development and proposal of a civics and government course of study as a stand-alone requirement rather than having the material taught as a section of other courses,” he wrote.
The Bangor Daily News reports:
As Maine’s political dynamics shift, Brunswick remains solidly liberal and loyal to the Democratic Party. The town’s voters overwhelmingly backed Democrat Hillary Clinton in this year’s presidential election, with Trump earning less than 30 percent of the vote there. Brunswick’s legislative delegation has for more than a decade been solidly Democratic and the town’s voters preferred U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, by a wide margin over Brunswick resident Mark Holbrook, a Republican, in this year’s 1st District race.
From the report and the superintendent’s letter, it appears that had Hillary Clinton won the election, no new civics course would have been recommended since American voters would have presumably elected the “correct” candidate.