ECS 210
Citizenship Education8/7/2020 I do not remember a ton from my education that revolved around citizenship education. After reading "What kind of Citizen?" by Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahne, I learnt that there are three kinds of citizenship. Personally Responsible citizen, Participatory citizen and Justice Oriented citizen. The way the article explained the difference between the three was that "personally responsible were the ones that contribute cans of food for homeless, participatory would be the ones that organized the food drive and the justice oriented ones would be asking why people are hungry and then fixing the problem (Westheimer, 2004)".
From my own education I remember little details surrounding around citizenship, but I don't remember teachers putting a focus on helping to shape the students, we mostly just focused on what I assume is from the curriculum. "Schools should help shape citizens; not just about job training (Westheimer, 2015)". Schools tried to teach us to be kind and treat others how we want to be treated, which would fit into the personally responsible citizen. We would also be asked to bring in non-perishable food items for food drives the schools had. We had a small focus also on participatory citizenship when we learnt about how government and community based organizations work; but I do not remember a huge focus on citizenship education. My lack of citizenship education is most likely similar to others. This could lead to why there isn't a ton of people offering to volunteer or address social issues and injustices. The lack of education around it is showing people that social justice issues and injustices are not important, this is why many people are not fighting for injustices today. We did not receive the education for it and were not shown the importance. As a future teacher I know it is my job to teach students about the three types of citizens and help them act on movements they find important. It is also important to talk about current events in the classroom because students are not going to learn how to fight for change when they are taught to avoid it. I am going to support my students in standing up for things they believe in, that acts to lead are important such as student walk outs (Cappello, 2018)". I also know it is my duty to keep learning about social justice issues so that I am better educated to educate my students. From the OHASSTA talks I learnt that political correctness occurs when we acknowledge the land but don't learn and fix our ways. I am making the promise to my future students and community that I will keep learning so that I can educate the future leaders.
1 Comment
Natalie
8/13/2020 04:23:44 pm
Hey there Meagan, I sounds like we have very similar education experiences based on citizen and curriculum. Which is primarily focused on being a good citizen, food drives and picking up garbage. I have noticed in at the University level we are more focused on social justice curriculum which seems to be slowly entering the school systems. The idea that curriculum wants to create more engaged citizens but combined with becoming justice orientated. I see this because during most of my classes that I have taken over the past year have had a ton of precedence on social justice topics.
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