ECS 210- Week 8

Personally, I remember a central focus on personally responsible citizenship through my K-12 school. A few examples of this are food drives organized by the school and mock elections every few years. In addition, there were some limited attempts to incorporate citizenship as participation. For example, through the optional Student Representative Council, as well as the opportunity to join clubs and sports teams. Also, particularly in high school there was mandatory community service required in our Christian Ethics courses. Therefore, for four years part of the requirements for to graduate was the completion of 120 hours of participatory citizenship.

This approach to curriculum made possible participation in the community that most students would not have done if it had not been a requirement. In this sense, there was a transaction between the school, the home, and the community to promote overall social wellness. In terms of the personally-responsible orientations, there was an insistence to follow the rules, vote in elections, and donate to charities. This creates a type of citizen that can hopefully identify situations in which they should act. Finally, this approach to curriculum has made justice-oriented citizenship difficult, because there was no insistence on structural change. It is hard to say whether this is symptomatic of the inherent conservatism of Catholic education, but the intrinsic orientation towards history and structural order makes the promotion of justice-oriented citizenship difficult.