CITIZENSHIP

Athens was the site of the first democracy. Citizenship is an idea born in ancient Greece.

What is a Citizen? To be a citizen is to hold a position of rights and responsibilities in a society. In a democratic society such as ours, citizens are rulers. The government belongs to the people. If you were born in this country you are a U.S citizen. If your parents are U.S. citizens, but you were born in another country, you are also a U.S. citizen. Citizens enjoy many freedoms and rights. Citizens may vote in elections. They can even run for political office. They also have many duties such as paying taxes and defending their country.

CLASSROOM Your classroom is a miniature of a democratic society. You and your students are citizens of your classroom and school.

Keep in mind the old saying that “children learn what they live.” They are shaped by their experiences. So, to teach and learn citizenship with children, we must create a democratic society for them to live in. We need to treat children as more than just students in our classroom but also citizens in our classroom.

CLASSROOM DEMOCRACY In making the classroom a miniature democracy, the children you work with will be self- governing. This means major responsibilities for each child. This also means major rights for each child. You need to create an atmosphere of cooperation, courtesy behavior, and discipline. The means there needs to be activities that included team building, working and playing together, and an atmosphere of support for each other, and a commitment to individual and collective interests.

CLASS ACTIVITIES The class meetings, the shared decision making, the team work and projects, the informal discussions, and the civil society that you create in your classroom will be the foundation. As students become citizens of the classroom, you will set the stage for the next step, that is, learning the history and traditions of citizenship.

CLASSROOM – CIVIL SOCIETY This is the academic knowledge that you and your “fellow citizens” will apply as your classroom becomes a civil society. School and community service projects will follow as students begin to understand that citizenship involves reaching out to others, participating in the public square, and respecting the rights of their fellow human beings.

JOHN DEWEY When John Dewey wrote that knowledge comes to life in activity, he was saying that textbook information without application and testing in experiences is dead knowledge. In the sense of his quote, your classroom becomes an experience in democracy! You and your students are testing each day the ideas of rights and responsibilities, freedom and duty, and civility (courtesy behavior) and collaboration.

What is the Citizen’s Role in American Democracy? Young children learn about individual responsibility by helping to make classroom rules and learning to follow them. They also learn that people must take responsibility for their actions. These early experiences serve as the foundation for increasingly sophisticated experiences throughout the succeeding school years.

SCHOOL IS A COMMUNITY OF LEARNERS This implies that the children and teachers, administrators, and support staff who go there will find themselves in a communal setting. A true community is a relational place where people work together, play together, and share their thoughts, feelings, and dreams.

JEAN PIAGET and LEV VYGOTSKY These theorists have addressed the ideas of social knowledge. Social knowledge arises from shared group experience. When children and teachers play and work together on projects, activities, and other aspects of school life, they become bonded through their commonly held knowledge and collective memory. This leads to a sense of community, a sense of belonging – the beginning of citizenship.

CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION Teaching citizenship education to young children is one of the most important contributions you can make as a teacher. The children you teach will assume positions of leadership and responsibility well into the 21st century. Citizenship education at its best takes place at two separate but related levels that we can call the formal and the informal.

CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION Formal citizenship education involves the academic study of history, civics, literature, the arts, and other subjects. Students need to learn the functions of political systems at the local, state, and national levels. They need to understand the relationship of the United States to other countries.

CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION Informal citizenship education is experiential, often involving the life of classroom, the playground, the community, and the home. Formal education initiates the process by exposing the children to ideas, but ideas take hold best when they are related to direct experience. Examples:

DIRECT EXPERIENCES Create opportunities for service learning at all levels K-12. – community projects Make your classroom and school miniature democracies Be sure your students have opportunities to work with others beyond the classroom – volunteering, tutoring Connect the classroom to home – assign topics for students to discuss with their families Take advantage of the opportunities to reflect on the social/moral life of school – issues related to fairness, sharing, cooperation, bullying, cheating, or fighting.

IN LESSONS Study a wide variety range of topics Use interactive lessons Include service learning Encourage student participation in school governance Encourage extracurricular participation Use simulations – voting, trials, legislature deliberations

IN SUMMARY A child is a citizen of a family, classroom, school, community, state, country, and the world. Students learn the ideas of citizenship best when they are given the opportunities to experience it in the classroom, the school, and the community. These environments offer wonderful possibilities for participation, cooperation, and team building. These are the building blocks of citizenship education.

Citizenship Do your share to make your school and community better • Cooperate • Get involved in community affairs • Stay informed; vote • Be a good neighbor • Obey laws and rules • Respect authority • Protect the environment • Volunteer

CITIZEN RAP We are good citizens, You know it’s true. We are good citizens in all we do. We work hard and respect every rule, Helping the community and our school. We listen, share and always care, We show good citizenship everywhere!

“When all of us work together, we become good citizens and our country BOOKMARK SAYING “When all of us work together, we become good citizens and our country becomes stronger.” ~ Donna Forest

Internet Sites Ben’s Guide to Government Citizens’ Rights Teaching Citizenship’s 5 Themes Citizenship WebQuest Citizenship Activities Naturalization Requirements