Throughout my K-12 years, my schools and community around me were mainly involved in Participatory Citizens and Personally Responsible Citizens. Looking back, I would say I was personally more involved in activities and events that would fall under Participatory Citizens.
At the elementary school I went to, we had an SRC and in grade 8 I got to be part of the SRC. We collectively picked a nonprofit charity to help raise money for, and then any dances, bake sales, candy cane sales we had, our money would go to the charity. When I was to purchase something at one of these sales/events, it felt good knowing I was helping give back to our community. Then in my last year of elementary, it felt even better to be more involved and actually help run these events at our school. Once I hit highschool, I did a lot of volunteering in the community. I spent about 2 ½ years volunteering at Wascana Rehab Centre. It was rewarding and a privilege to be there knowing I was making a difference in some of the patients’ days.
I think the curriculum, specifically in more classes than others, tries to teach us to give back to our communities when we can. I believe that’s why in some highschool classes, they require you to do a certain amount of volunteer hours which then goes towards your final grade in that class. I preach that volunteer hours are a great requirement in some classes. Not only is doing those hours going to better your mark, but you then get to put that on your resume, and you get to potentially have experiences that lead you to what you want to do as a career when you are done secondary school. For example, my best friend was a volunteer trainer for one of our sports teams and because of that experience it made her decide to take the kinesiology pathway in university. I believe that is one of the many ways the curriculum helps students become better citizens in their communities.