Learn It, Live It
Civics Education a Key to Promoting Active Citizenship
By Mikel Chavers
It took a group of South Florida middle school students working on a civics class project to convince lawmakers to pass a bill aimed at stopping unscrupulous doctors and pain clinics from dispensing pain medications to addicts from across the nation.
Hialeah Gardens Middle School students got involved in a controversial pill mill bill in Florida and actually helped it pass the legislature. Twice the middle schoolers from the Miami area made the eight-hour trip to the capitol to lobby for the bill in front of committee, making presentations to legislators.
“When I was working the bill through the process—you know, it wasn’t an easy bill. There were a lot of special interest groups pulling from all different directions,” said Florida Rep. Joseph Abruzzo, one of the sponsors of Senate Bill 2272. “They helped me convince the legislators that this was a very important measure that needed to be passed this year … without their help, I don’t know if this bill would have passed.”
That’s because Florida middle school teacher Jackie Viana wanted her civics education classes to understand firsthand how government really works. Instead of teaching how a bill becomes a law using colorful flow charts, she wanted students to choose a bill, dissect it, research it and actively get involved.
After the mother of a science teacher at the school died from a prescription drug overdose, the students became passionate about the issue. Not only that, it’s something they see the effects of in their community, Viana said.
She said her students have videos of cars from all over the country driving to pain clinics in South Florida going from doctor to doctor and from pain clinic to pain clinic for pain pills, sometimes getting thousands at a time.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist signed the bill into law this summer.
But civics education success stories are spotty at best and civics education as a whole is declining, said Margaret Branson, associate director of the Center for Civics Education uses the center’s programs in her classroom and won a national award for her outstanding efforts this year.
“It has been sidelined primarily because of the No Child Left Behind legislation and our fixation at this point with math, science and marketable skills,” Branson said.
“With No Child Left Behind, the focus has been on teaching to the tests and things like civics education fall to the wayside,” said Vermont Secretary of State Deborah L. Markowitz.
Civics education has actually become politically incorrect and teachers are afraid to sway children’s opinions, Markowitz said, so a lot of schools dropped it for that reason. Not only that, legislators in the classroom initiatives are also somewhat of a mixed bag. “Schools are somewhat reluctant to have legislators in because they’ve had a mixed experience,” she said. “Not all legislators are good at talking to 12-year-olds.”
Her office plans to revamp the legislators in the schools program, but will have to wait until a non-election year.
In Florida, civics education received favorable treatment and is now required in the seventh grade. This year legislation passed to have civics test—it’s not on the statewide assessment, but it’s a start, Viana said.
Hands-On Learning
“Teaching kids to be active citizens has to start in the classroom,” Viana said. It’s not enough to read about the issues, either. “The only way kids will like it is when they actually actively participate in it.”
Arkansas Sen. Jimmy Jeffress, a retired teacher and chairman of the Senate Education Committee, agrees. Each year he volunteers for a mock legislature sponsored by local American Legion chapters in his state. Every year, nearly 1,000 students are bused to the capitol and are divided into mock legislatures.
Jeffress met a student playing the role of state senator this year who just happened to be his constituent. After the session ended, the student spoke with Jeffress about a problem in his district.
The student’s district is in financial distress. In Arkansas, if a district is on the financial distress list two years running, it’s at risk of being taken over by the state or consolidated with an adjoining district, Jeffress said.
“The fact that he was concerned about his school and wanted to take an active part in doing something just really spoke to me and impressed me,” Jeffress said. “I can’t help but think that that young man has a future … it all happened because of the spark and watching the process. That’s what we’re trying to instill in these young men and women.”
To date, Viana’s classes have used that same kind of spark to introduce eight bills to the Florida legislature over the years, finding sponsors for them—two of them have become Florida laws, according to Viana. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush even came to her class in 2001 to sign a bill they worked on into law.
The Age-Old Problem
With approval ratings from politicians at historic lows, civics education has a hand in informing the next generation of voters.
More than half of voters, or 58 percent, say they have just some or no confidence at all in President Obama to make the right decisions for the country’s future, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC Newspoll. Approval ratings are even lower for Congress—68 percent say they have little to no confidence in Congressional Democrats and 72 percent say they have little to no confidence in Congressional Republicans, according to the poll.
“We say we have self-government, but you don’t want ignorant self-government. You want government on the part of people that understand the basics of the system, the values of the system and the trade-offs of the system we have,” Branson said.
Branson said an unformed public leads to a lack of understanding about how government works, contributing to low approval ratings and an age-old problem. “On the one hand, they want all kinds of government services and benefits and so on. At the same time, they don’t want to pay for them.” she said. “They want government programs that make sense, but they don’t realize that those programs cost money … it’s a failure to appreciate the trade-offs that are involved.”
But Viana’s teaching is helping to combat that problem—it’s also touching parents.
“A lot of my kids teach their parents,” she said. In her school, 99 percent are immigrants or children of immigrants. The students hear that politicians are crooks from their parents, she said, but she invites public officials to her programs so students can see they are just people trying to change the community.
Her students’ triumph is due to Viana’s passion for her job as a civics teacher. Originally from Peru, she came to America after a terrorist group took over the city she lived in. Bullets were flying and it just wasn’t safe, she said.
“When I took this job, and they told me that I would be teaching civics, I took it as an honor,” Viana said. “I think it came it came out of gratitude for this country.”
