ANN
BIANCHETTI
Diary #25
What
My Students Believe about America
Thomas Jefferson said, "To preserve our liberties, we must have an educated citizenry." He went on to found the University of Virginia to help achieve that end.
Throughout my graduate work in social studies education I've come across many books hailing the importance of education for citizenship. Some of the titles will give you an idea of how prevalent this idea is: Education for Democracy, Democratic Education, Educating for Civic Virtue and Civic Education: Producing Citizens.
This last title got me thinking. Producing citizens? Is citizenship and American-ness something we manufacture in the classroom? Are students devoid of citizenship knowledge, and therefore citizenship, before they take a formal Civics class (which in New Jersey is in eighth grade, and I teach it)? Is Jefferson right when he argues that in order to have our democracy continue in the best possible way and guarantee freedom for the most people we must have education geared towards teaching democratic virtues? Is that what schools are for?
What is an American?
A look at the history of social studies is illuminating. In the 1920's social studies, as a school subject, was invented. It was intended to teach students the values and history of our country and to teach students the rights and responsibilities of being an American citizen. This was in response to the huge numbers of immigrants entering public schools at this time. The keepers of curriculum believed these new Americans needed to be taught "how to be an American." Over the past 80 some odd years, social studies has grown to include not only this basic civics but also economics, psychology, sociology, geography and history.
Today civics education is still meant to inculcate the rights and responsibilities of Americans as well as to teach the nuts and bolts of how our government and society work. What happens, though, when what is taught in school does not match what students live each day in their American communities?
As part of my graduate study I am working as a research assistant with a professor on a project called "Civic Identities." This project aims to answer a fundamental question: Do students' lives mirror or contradict what they learn in civics class? My professor and I spent some time conducting in-class activities with my eighth graders on the Pledge of Allegiance and the Bill of Rights. The results are heartbreaking as well as inspiring.
My students offer civics lessons of their own
In two Socratic seminars students had a chance to talk about how their lives reflected the values and ideals in the Pledge and Bill of Rights. We posed questions to them such as, "Should students be required to say the Pledge?" "What does the Pledge stand for?" "Where have you seen the Bill of Rights in action in your life?"
My students freely shared their lives with us, and their voices reflected a diversity of opinions. Some students spoke of trying times. One girl shared the story of how she and her brother were followed around a store because they were black; another told how her mother's car was searched at a routine traffic stop without search warrant.
The saddest tale came from Amber, who recalled that when she was babysitting her younger brother the police knocked in her door and raided her house looking for a drug dealer. She recounted for us the terror she and her brother felt as police shouted and pointed guns at her (she was twelve at the time). They arrested her father. A few hours later he was released when the police realized they had the wrong man. She poignantly explained how after she learned about her fourth amendment rights (freedom from search and seizure) she was even angrier about what had happened.
Other students discussed how the Pledge did not reflect reality. Liberty and justice for all? If that was so, they asked, then why was there segregation until the Civil Rights Movement began to break down those barriers? Others strongly asserted that America was a lot more than a "just a flag, just a piece of cloth that can be ripped or burned. America is its people, its nation, WE, the people are America, not a piece of cloth" as one student said.
Some students felt that students should not be forced to recite the Pledge in schools, that teachers should allow kids to make up their own minds about whether to say it. Other students were equally vehement about the importance of reciting it every morning. "Now that we are in a war it's very important to say it. We need to think about the soldiers in Iraq, what are they doing at the very moment we are reciting it? We should say it for them." Some students proudly asserted that although they knew America was more than a flag, the flag did stand for America and that should be respected.
It was absolutely beautiful to hear some of these kids who had experienced discrimination, poverty and police abuse state that the "idea of America is great. We have more freedom here than anywhere in the world. I know it's not fair in some places or for some people, but we've got to work against that and be proud of America anyway. I mean we black people have come a long way since slavery day. That's America."
I was proud
I was so proud of my students' abilities to voice their anger at injustice while at the same time voicing pride and hope in America. They all wanted to work for social justice, to hold America accountable to her ideals. They rose above their middle school years when they recognized that "not all cops are bad, it's just some ignorant ones" and "for the most part, America is fair now, it's just some few stupid people who are still racist."
This conversation reminded me of how adept my students were at handling a clash of cultures when some of them attended a mostly white student council event (see my diary entry about our "field trip to suburbia").
There are many studies out there that claim that minority students and students in general, are apathetic about civic issues. After listening to my students, I have to strongly disagree. My students are on fire to help change attitudes and tensions by the simple act of being themselves. They do not have to be radical; they do not have to march with Al Sharpton. They simply have to attend events (like the student council meeting) and make friends. So, do students need civic education? Yes. Students need to understand the workings of their government in order to be effective participants in it and challenge it to live up to its ideals. Ignorance of the system will just lock them out and ensure that nothing changes. I also believe that this civic education is what can give kids the ammunition to change the world.
