By developing the eight key character traits throughout the year, May is a review time to summarize how individuals with good character contribute to their family and community = CITIZENSHIP. We can serve others in our community, be it our family, neighborhood, town or world in many different ways. Children as well as adults can advocating as National Youth Leadership Council suggests: “Serve, Learn, Change the World” and we can start right here in our own schools.
May’s Character Corner compiled by Nancy Caggia, WCPTA Character Education Chair
CITIZENSHIP— The freedom that we have as Americans is our greatest gift and our most awesome responsibility. Given the challenges we face as a Nation, educating our young people to be knowledgeable, skillful, and engaged citizens of a free society has never been more important. By serving something greater than themselves, America's young people can help meet vital community needs while learning to become responsible and engaged citizens in our democratic society. This process is coined by the latest buzz word: service-learning, which starts with volunteering.
We volunteer for many reasons to accomplish many different goals. One of the most challenging tasks of raising good citizens is explaining to our children about advocacy....which is standing up for what we believe in and taking action to improve the situation. The way to explain this to our children is allowing them to join us in our service projects and reflecting and discussing the big picture. By advocating for solutions, we are influencing the decision-makers by getting involved in the policy making and political process. We can discuss why we sign petitions, why we vote, why we listen to debates, and why we write letters to officials, and being good citizens!
“Service-Learning: Planning and Reflection” is a $2 step-by-step guide which I highly recommend to help your child reflect and learn while volunteering their time and resources. The guide can be obtained at this website http://www.charactereducation.com/ or calling 919.967-2110. In this guide, thought-provoking questions are asked about what strengths and character traits were found in themselves; what obstacles and differences of opinion were encountered; and what needs to be done and/or changed. This is when advocacy and citizenship lessons can be learned and developed. One small voice gets to someone else and then there's two voices and then there's three chiming and then there's a chorus that's being heard. Any of the books by Barbara Lewis are excellent. Her books include: "The Kid's Guide to Service Projects", Kids with Courage", "The Kid's Guide to Social Action" and "What Do You Stand For?" .
This summer, consider doing a small service project with your family. Find something in your community that your family really cares about and would like to improve or change. Try to spend a few hours helping out in the short-term and advocating for a longer-term solution. See some worthwhile websites http://www.studentsinservicetoamerica.org/tools_resources/index.html for ideas and http://www.activecitizenship.org/service.html for examples. The Relay for Life is a wonderful example of volunteering which involved the students, our families and community! If you really would like to see our Legislators appropriate more money toward cancer research, send a message now and start being an advocate!
Don’t know where to send the message, just put your zip code into this webpage at http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/GIS/Representation/Who_Represents_Me/Who_Represents_Me.htm
As National Youth Leadership Council at http://www.nylc.org/ suggests “Serve, Learn, Change the World”. It can start now in small steps by introducing citizenship, service and advocacy as an essential part of our life in this country. This freedom and duty is something that our young children may unknowingly take for granted.
