We are part of a large co-op and for 9th grade history they are offering American Government using a 12th grade text book. I have always planned on my kids taking government in 11th or 12th grade, when they are a little more mature and might be able to make more sense of it! Looking at other curriculums, most seem to have government as a 12th grade class and geography in 9th. We have never focused on just geography. I am leaning toward skipping history with the co-op and doing geography for 9th grade and doing government in 12th grade. What do you think? When did your highschoolers take government or when do you plan for your highschoolers to take government?????
I think when I was in high school, we did Civics in 10th grade, with six weeks of a course they called Americanism vs Communism... which I think has been altered nowadays to Free Enterprise. I had bought years ago a course from Christian Liberty called The Land of Fair Play, which is civics for 8th graders. Did it this year just past with a 9th grader, but she worked so slowly that we never got around to Free Enterprise... Now I'm not sure when we'll get around to it. I also see that most curricula put Government/Economics in 12th, except for Lifepacs and CLE which have about half the 9th grade taken up with civics and careers, and the other half world geography. I'm not sure how Civics and Government are supposed to be different. Is it just the name? or is a 12th grade Government course supposed to be qualitatively different somehow than an 8th/9th grade Civics course? I think in future, I'm going to wait until students are closer to 18 and voting to do this, whatever course I'm using.
I took government in 11th grade. I always thought it was something that kids learned 11th/12th grade. Maybe I'm wrong.
I really don't think it matters. I think it was "officially 12th grade" because many kids transferred from district to district. That way it wouldn't be "missed" if a kid transferred from District A (where it's taught in 12th) to District B (where it was taught in 11th).
That is my thinking. It just seems to make more sense. It has been a long time since I was in high school and I have no clue what I took or when I took it! Nor do I know the difference between civics and government??? Am I wrong in thinking that 9th grade is to soon for government?
I took civics and economics in 12th. I don't plan on doing a "government" course... just a civics/econ course when my kids are seniors. Not before. That was pretty heavy stuff and even at 18, I wasn't ready to feel the weight of the world sitting on my shoulders. I think 9th is too young... but I'm no expert
I distinctly remember taking it in 9th grade, and it was only a semester-long course (with geography being the other half). I wasn't too young, and I remember quite a lot from it, but then my mother was a social studies teacher, and I was always very bright/mature. For my own kids, I try to keep as many subjects together as possible, so that means one will have it in 12th, and the other will have it at the same time in 10th. To me, it doesn't matter that much, but yeah, I can see why having it in 11th or 12th would be a better idea (so long as it's done BEFORE 18 when they're able to vote... they need to understand the process and all that's involved before actually getting involved).
We had POD. That use to be "Problems of Democracy", until someone decided that there were no problems in a democracy, and they changed it to "Principles of Democracy" :roll:. But really, it had nothing to do with government. The first third we discussed things like careers and finances. We had to get married, plan a budget, buy a house, etc. We played a mock stock market. We took a career test, and had to research two or three different careers. We also had a unit on discrimination. The government book I did with my kids went through the different branches, the electoral college, the Constitution/Bill of Rights, and the different governmental departments.
I never took a government course in high school, but I think it would make more sense if the student already has a decent background in both geography and history. Ds14 studied plenty of geography in middle school and will be taking World History in 9th & 10th, US History in 11th and some combination of civics/government/economics in 12th.
I always thought Civics and Government were the SAME class? No? I like the idea of Civics/Econ the same year. Did you do them each as a half year?
I am one who transferred mid-year with this class. I was taking Govt. in 9th at a private school and transferred the last 6 weeks of the 1st semester. It was 10th grade at the public school. Ours was a govt. class about the constitution and the branches of govt. and it was 1 semester with the other semester being economics. The private school called it government and the public school called it citizenship but they were the same class really. I don't think it is above a 9th grader but I haven't seen the text either.
I took Government and Economics in public school, in 12th grade. They were a half semester each. I am already covering Economics and Government as we go. It is a part of life. Now that Em is earning money, she is examining the economy and government. A lot of questions have come up about banks and how they operate, cars and where they come from, etc... This year, we are covering economics, formally, because I want her to learn about self-sufficiency and how much money we actually hand over to the government via our purchases. She is in 10th grade. Government somewhat falls into place as we learn about economics. Still, in 11th grade, we will be more formal about covering Government.
