In Westheimer & Kahne’s piece What Kind of Citizen? They discuss the three types of citizens within a given society: “The Personally-responsible citizen”, “The Participatory Citizen”, and “The Justice Oriented Citizen”. The Personally-responsible citizen believes in being responsible for your community. Despite the label, it does not pertain to individualism instead; the personally responsible citizen makes sure that everyone takes part in supporting and making their environment better. Under this model, citizens are taught that honesty, integrity, and hard work promotes good citizenship. The Participatory Citizen is involved within social and civic affairs of their community: nationally, statewide, and locally. Educational programs that support this model focus on teaching how government and community based organizational groups work. The Justice Oriented Citizen deals with social justice. Good citizenship is dictated through focusing and calling attention to social injustice. These citizens analyze and criticize the antiquated and problematic issues and practices within the community.
Worthy of note, is that all three models for citizenship encapsulates a successful and responsible community. These citizens do not merely stand as one grounding model. They each display a strength that the other lacks. Therefore, there is a purpose for these types of citizens in any community. It becomes an issue however when teaching History. Teachers may believe in a particular model of citizenship over the other and therefore teach based off of their preferred model. This leaves students without a complete perspective of their world. The only solution would be to teach each model as they pertain to the area of learning. For example, when discussing the Civil Rights Movement, the Justice Oriented Citizen should be used. When teaching Government, the Participatory Citizen model should be followed. This gives students the option of choosing which model they want to utilize in life and does not force them to choose based on a limited perspective. Expounding further, there should also be a discussion on why the other models are not as effective within a particular unit.
Upon reading, I realized that I am a Justice Oriented Citizen. This is the reason why I became a teacher. I noticed a disparity of Education between low-income and middle-income students. I also lamented at the quality of learning. There is no reason why students should not be more aware of the significance of social movements. Social Movements have become an essential weapon in combating injustice and that is reflected within the many uprisings that have taken place in the last few months. It is completely important that my students not only understand past historical events but realize that these are not merely isolated incidents within society. We all have the power to invoke great change. Equally important is the Participatory Citizenship. Participatory Citizens, like Justice oriented citizens have the power to bring about major change in government and that is also reflective of History today.
Westheimer, J & Kahne, J. What Kind of Citizen? (2004)
http://engagestudiothinking.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/threekindsofcitizenship_excerpt.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment