American education is currently focused on the standards movement, setting criteria for academic content in the curriculum and subsequent performance by students. In the demand for standards, we must not overlook active learning strategies for training young people to become citizens, any more than we would expect them to be able to drive after just taking a written test. The late Brooks Hays, a dear friend and former U.S. representative from Arkansas, often told a story in which he asked one of his oldest constituents if she had voted on Election Day. It just encourages 'em. It means that civics is an inherently contradictory discipline that provides some sharply confusing messages to all of us, particularly impressionable young people.
Students are urged to participate, get involved, be active citizens.
But the dinnertime conversation at home and the constant deluge of media messages speak disparagingly of the frailties and failures of public servants and a system which tilts toward access to money. The upside, of course, is also the strongest link, the one that really needs to be stressed. Young people sense and learn this principle well through hands-on experiential opportunities in citizenship education. Stephen A. Janger is the founder and president of the Close Up Foundation in Alexandria, Va., the nation's largest civic education organization.