This is a guest blog post by Teen Day instructor Michael Smith. Michael led the 2018-2019 course Being a Citizen and will return to Teen Day in 2019-2020 to lead the course Understanding Where We Are.
I joined the staff of facilitators of learning experiences at TeenDay for the 2018-19 year. As a homeschooling parent (though my spouse has primary responsibility for these efforts) for all of my two boys’ “school” years, and as a teacher at the collegiate level for 20 years, I have long thought that the word “teaching” does not adequately convey the relational dynamic that is at the heart of meaningful learning. Nor does it embody a clear enough sense that the spirit of inquiry primarily comes from the learner, a spark that a good facilitator of learning can fan and shield and help to develop into a flame. Or maybe an all-consuming blaze. Or maybe nothing. That’s part of the dynamic too. Moreover, a teacher/learner binary tends to obscure the fact that one of the purest joys in my life is how often I learn from and with my students.
In planning “Being a Citizen,” the class I guided in 2018-19, I knew that I would gain valuable insights into the ways young people perceive our system of government, and maybe by seeing government and civic engagement through their eyes I would see anew the possibilities in our politics. Moreover, I knew that the learning experience would refresh my own understanding of the Constitution, of the form of government it guides, and of the state and local systems of government most of us experience more directly.
The experience exceeded my expectations in every respect. The 9 students who participated at some point during the year were engaged and curious throughout. We explored the question of why we even need government, why and how the system of government we use developed, what that system’s strengths and weaknesses are, and what our responsibilities as citizens are. Periodically, we would test our Constitutional knowledge using a game developed by the Youth Leadership Initiative of the Miller Center at the University of Virginia (the questions resembled those found on some of the quizzes you can find on-line). By the end of the class, all of the learners were rolling their eyes at how easy the questions seemed–and yet we had read more than one article about how most Americans couldn’t answer even the most basic questions about the Constitution and government. When we took an example of the test than aspiring citizens have to take (and again, one which the majority of native born citizens could not pass), we scored in the 90 percentile.
But knowledge is rather empty without application. For their final reflective essays, each participant wrote about a few of the insights that emerged from the learning experience. I thought sharing a few excerpts might be a good way to end this post:
Finding a shared language is . . . key in governance in order for people to have a common understanding of what is being worked towards. If there is a framework for the dialog that has already been created, such as in our Constitution or ideals laid out in the Declaration of Independence, things can more forward from a starting point of understanding. Integral to our democracy is Aristotle’s idea of civic friendship and trusting and valuing those we do not know at all.
I have been able to get a much better perspective of why we have government. Before this class I barely even knew why government was necessary. To me it was such a flawed system that it might as well not even exist. But now I have been able to gain a deeper respect for what the government is trying to do and why it is necessary. I was able to realize that our government is actually not just a system where those in government rule over us but a system where we can ideally be the ones behind what is going on.
As the class title implies, this class focused on the idea of citizenship. The reason we discussed all the aspects of government was to help be a good citizen. When I think back to the beginning of class I remember thinking of citizenship literally as a legal status of someone living in a country. Now after all the work from class I’ve now realized that citizenship isn’t that simple. . . . Citizenship is a big responsibility and you must own it by being involved in government or in your community.
TEEN DAY Ithaca 