Reading Response 6

Prompt:
¹⁾ What examples of citizen education do you remember from your K-12 schooling? What types of citizenship (e.g. which of the three types mentioned in the article were the focus? Explore what this approach to the curriculum made (im)possible in regards to citizenship?
²⁾ What does the approach we take to citizenship instruction in any in any given place tell use about that place? About what will curriculum makers value? About what kinds of citizens they want to produce?

¹⁾ My high school had a Student Leadership Committee (SLC) with several branches. As students we were able to join as many branches as we liked. I personally was part of two branches; one that dealt exclusively with volunteering within and outside of the community, and a second that dealt with planning and organizing our school’s spirit days. All SLC meetings were conducted during breaks, or after school. Although it wasn’t technically part of any one class, I feel like this is a good example of citizen education. As far as which layer of citizenship the SLC programs taught, I would say it was mostly the personally responsible, sometimes reaching into the territory of participatory, citizenship level. The truth is, while we were volunteering around the community, and even made the occasional trip to Regina (approx 2 hours one way) to volunteer in a soup kitchen on the weekend, we never went any deeper. We never researched why we were needed to volunteer, or even what was happening in the communities we were going into. While the experience is something that has stayed with me, and I have volunteered personally since, looking back I can see that a divide was definitely created between us (the volunteers) and them (the people in need of help. We didn’t take the time to look into what was actually happening and didn’t make any connections. I’m not at all saying the program should be axed. Maybe though, more due diligence could be taken when exposing students to these types of situations.

²⁾ I think that the place you practice citizenship education (i.e. the school, community, municipality, etc.) has a definite affect on the way that you have to approach certain topics. Because of that, the opposite is true. If you are teaching in a school that is deep in the heart of oil territory and your students decide that they want to investigate the policies regarding renewable energy for example, you definitely have to treat lightly. Not only are you possibly going to face backlash from the students’ families, and the community at large, but you will also end up being perceived as someone who is against the status quo, even if that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The truth is, no matter where you are teaching there will always be hot button issues that are going to create tension. If that tension is met with push back from your administration then you know that your school doesn’t necessarily want to create justice seeking citizens, but citizens who take on more of a participatory perspective. If on the flip side the tension you create is met with support from your administration then you know they want to support students in becoming not only active participants in the community, but change makers.