CITIZENSHIP

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

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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.

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CLASSROOM

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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What is the Citizens 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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CITIZEN RAP

• We are good citizens,
• You know its 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!

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BOOKMARK SAYING

• When all of us work together, we become good
  citizens and our country
• becomes stronger.
• Donna Forest

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Internet Sites

• Bens Guide to Government
• Citizens Rights
• Teaching Citizenships 5 Themes
• Citizenship WebQuest
• Citizenship Activities
• Naturalization Requirements