At the U3A Current Affairs meeting last week I asked what was taught in school citizenship lessons. Someone said it was political, about voting and government. Sounded boring to me. Today I discovered a book entitled Clear Thinking: An Elementary Course of preparation for Citizenship by RW Jepson, published in 1936.

In the introduction the author quotes Sir ED Simon in Training for Citizenship: 'The citizen of democracy also needs certain intellectual qualities. It is not enough to love truth; he must learn how to find it. It is easy to teach students to reason correctly in the physical sciences; it is much more difficult to teach them to reason correctly in the social sciences where their own prejudices and passions are involved. They must be taught habits of clear thinking in order that they may acquire the power of recognising their own prejudices and of discussing political and economic questions with the same calm, the same desire to understand the other person's position, the same precision and absence of overstatement, as they would bring to the discussion of a problem in mathematics.'

The Dept for Education and Skills website (www.dfes.gov.uk/citizenship/) lists 'three inter-related components that should run through all education for Citizenship.

1 Social and moral responsibility: Pupils learning, from the very beginning, self-confidence and socially and morally responsible behaviour both in and beyond the classroom, towards those in authority and towards each other.
2 Community involvement: Pupils learning about becoming helpfully involved in the life and concerns of their neighbourhood and communities, including learning through community involvement and service to the community.
3 Political literacy: Pupils learning about the institutions, problems and practices of our democracy and how to make themselves effective in the life of the nation, locally, regionally and nationally through skills and values as well as knowledge - a concept wider than political knowledge alone.'

It adds: 'Pupils develop skills of enquiry, communication, participation and responsible action through learning about and becoming informed and interested citizens.'

I am sceptical about what passes for citizenship in schools; however, without more information I shall reserve judgement. Meanwhile I wonder what pupils would make of the questions given at the end of the book about clear thinking. Here are some examples.

A man confesses to a crime. Is this sufficient to convict him? If not, why not?

Criticise the following argument: 'Free schooling, then free meals, now free boots and free milk—why! there will be free tickets for the cinema for the children before we know where we are.'

Consider the point of view of the 'next motorist' who comes before a magistrate who has just announced; 'I shall make an example of the next motorist who comes before me charged with speeding on the --- bypass.'

A burglar, after one of his housebreaking exploits, leaves behind a written message which contains glaring errors in grammar and spelling. What different inferences can be made?

Thought for today
When the occasion or object in question is not such as calls for, or is likely to excite in those particular readers or hearers, the emotions required, it is a common rhetorical artifice to turn their attention to some object which will call forth these feelings; and when they are too much excited to be capable of judging calmly, it will not be difficult to turn their passions, once roused, to the direction required, and to make them view the case before them in a very different light.
Whately, Rhetoric