When I was in elementary school, I was taught a lot about citizenship, even though it was not till around grade 7 or 8 that I finally realized what it meant. Most of the time I was taught how to be a Personally Responsible citizen. I attended catholic schools from Kindergarten-Grade 12 and their idea of a good citizen, was to be a personal responsible citizen. The two main course in which focused the most personal responsibility as a citizen was in religion, and sometimes health. It also became a part of the schools atmosphere and culture. Any chance they had to integrate personal responsibility and independence in the school they did. Otherwise in all of the classrooms it could be seen in the daily procedures and expectations of the students. The examples of the people who were considered good citizens were people who usually had high moral standing. Usually they were were people like saints, well-known humanitarians, high ranking religious figures, or just well known people who help out in their community.
Once I entered high school the direction changed from being a personally responsible citizen to being more of a participatory student. They had students ran events, councils, and clubs, such as SRC, SADD, Minga, and Best Buddies which involved working with and being friends with the school's special education students. All of these clubs and groups required the students to take on the initiative and responsibility. This approach allows for students to not only learn how to become good citizens, but also good leaders and community members and leaders. Overall, while being a personally responsible and participatory citizen were very visible in my education experiences, being a justice oriented citizen was not. Citizenship is something that schools will continue to teach students even though it is not really a part of the core curriculum that teachers are required to teach. Schools have an obligation to teach their students much more than just the core subjects.
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3/12/2019 11:30:56 am
Hi Paul,
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