ABSTRACT
While most teachers can readily name the branches and functions of government, few teachers understand democracy as a political philosophy, and thus they do not really understand the most central conceptual rationales behind the values, processes, structures, and institutions of democratic law and government: the core democratic values. Further, textbooks and curricula in this area do not typically help teachers because most of the materials having anything to do with political philosophy are, in my experience, inadequate. Teachers also are not academically prepared in this subject area. Social studies teacher preparation is dominated by history and supplemented by geography and economics. Political philosophy is not oft en required and is rarely studied. Th is worries me. How can we teach the core democratic values and prepare citizens if we are not sure what democracy means? Th e way that I teach about democratic political philosophy is solid but not highly innovative in terms of pedagogy. What is, sadly, most distinctive, is the fact that I teach this at all.
