I am in desperate need to find a few suggestions as to how to teach Civics to Sophomores and Economics to Juniors and Seniors, THAT IS REALLY significant. The Civics course is Intro to US politics: English roots, Constitution, Preamble, Bill of Rights, State and Local, and Indian Gov’t (We live in a state with tribal peoples).
Economics: I am currently using Economic Reasoning, One Lesson, Where has Penny Candy gone, and the current Junior Achievement Economics. The course is Micro, but there is a followup in Macro in the NCEE AP course.
I know they need mainstream economics to “play the game” in college, but I wish to teach them Austrian Civics/economics.
I have always been of the opinion that teaching kids to think is the most important thing that they can be taught, since this allows for ample amounts of self-education. Since you are probably required to stick to the mandatory coursework, and, like you said, prepare those who wish to go to college with a foundation in mainstream econ, I would encourage discussion of the ideas by presenting contradictory economic philosophies. I have always been a fan of playing the role of the “devil’s advocate,” since it always forces people to think critically (even if they are correct in their opinion on whatever).
I have not opened an economics text book in years, so I can’t really remember how they progressed or presented information. But when you get to something like money supply, it would not be hard to point out an issue with the current U.S. practice (which is what I am sure will be advocated within the book), and then find out if your students agree. You can push them to understand the concepts of money supply by working with them to come up with more efficient (Austrian) theories. This will allow them to learn and understand the concepts of the text book far more than just reading through the sections systematically.
While you may be required to test them over a lot of the economics presented in the class, you could offer essay questions (bonus points or something perhaps) that ask the student to elaborate upon on an alternative and more efficient method (something discussed in class already) for whatever you all were focusing upon in the chapter.
I wouldn’t take a pro-Austrian or anti-Austrian stance. I would just push the students to realize that it’s okay to disagree with teachers and textbooks so long as you are using sound logic. Chances are, many students might find the approach more interesting since it is less traditional, causing greater amounts of involvement and learning.
Just my two cents… that’s how I always thought I would teach a class.
May I suggest The Nature of Man and His Government by Robert LeFevre, for your civics course. This is a short and methodological work, that I believe high school students can swallow, and get them really thinking.
For economics, a great book for students would be; An Introduction to Economic Reasoning by David Gordon. This is also very digestable, it is laden with humour, and has a lot of questions for the student that will stir his imagination, and reasoning abilities. I think a great course would take Man Economy and State, but it’s very large.