Week 7 – What Citizen Will you Teach?

The type of citizenship education I remember growing up according to the article What Kind of Citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy written by Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahne would range from personally responsible citizen to participatory citizen. I do no recall any experiences that would of lead us to bigger issues and classified my learning to be justice-orientated citizens. I remember having classes where we would go outside, walk around the community, and pick garbage. Some of the classroom teacher’s I had made our class responsible for the recycling of the school etc. Teachers would fundraise for certain organizations and my parents would send me with food for the food hampers or dog treats for the humane society. Those are some examples of being a personally responsible citizen that I can remember. I was involved in the SLC in elementary school and the SRC in high school, this allowed for more growth in the description of what a participatory citizen would be. We were able with guidance from our teachers discuss as a group what charity we would like to donate to, what activities we thought the rest of the student body would enjoy during spirit days and gym assemblies. I think the main focus was just making sure we would be law abiding citizens that would help contribute to people in need or help someone in need. I do not remember learning about politics or how governments worked and I do definitely fell undereducated in that area as an adult now. I do not remember the push to get us as students to take active roles in leading initiatives.  

Only teaching at what I would say a “safe” level of teaching (teaching what is comfortable and not rocking the boat on bigger issues) and not pushing us as students to explore and try problem solve world issues like racism, global warming, homelessness, and malnourished children etc. left little to no growth in fighting for changes as an adult. The teacher’s focus was to get us to act and behaviour as good citizens and we did have voices, but not a voice for big change. In the YouTube video What Kind of Citizen? Educating Our Children for the Common Good starring Joel Westheimer he says “we need to shoot higher than just the basics for our students” that stood out to me. I recently had a tarot card reading, one of the cards that was pulled for me was “spiritual teacher”, and the card reader explained to me that it is not about just learning from books… Once I get how to teach and teach good do not forget, where I come from and what is in my heart and passion for teaching. She reminded me that there is a light in everybody and try look for that light and remember that about my students and about myself as a teacher. This has had me thinking since I had that reading done. As teachers, I think we all want to make a difference not only in the children we are teaching, but also in our society. I think that card was meant to push me and to push my future students to achieve more than just the participatory or personally responsible citizen and aim for more. Dabble into justice-orientated teaching and get my students to be passionate and strong about bigger item issues.

We are stuck in a world that is caught up with how and what media and politics want us to be, we forget we have our own paths to make. We are also living in a westernized society that speaks highly of how we are wanting and willing to make change, but we are not teaching why it is important for that change and reconciliation to occur. The curriculum makers value the good westernized citizen that will follow the rules of how to be a good Canadian. They want us to produce citizens that are active and working member of society, that volunteer their time at special events, and who will not challenge the norm. We need to teach students to become leaders and to challenge what they do not believe is right.