Introduction
In AmeriCorps, citizenship can mean much more than memorizing names and dates from a history book or spending a Saturday cleaning up a vacant lot. What is citizenship really about, and how can it help you make a real and lasting difference in your own life and the life of your community?
I. Citizenship in Our Free Society
AmeriCorps encourages its members, and indeed all of America, to embrace a renewal and expansion of the idea of citizenship. At a basic level, citizenship means voting, obeying the law, and serving on juries. On another level, it means much more. Citizenship also means:
In AmeriCorps, citizenship can mean much more than memorizing names and dates from a history book or spending a Saturday cleaning up a vacant lot. What is citizenship really about, and how can it help you make a real and lasting difference in your own life and the life of your community?
I. Citizenship in Our Free Society
AmeriCorps encourages its members, and indeed all of America, to embrace a renewal and expansion of the idea of citizenship. At a basic level, citizenship means voting, obeying the law, and serving on juries. On another level, it means much more. Citizenship also means:
• Becoming informed about the critical issues facing our nation and its communities.
• Making a commitment to personal responsibility for the welfare of ourselves, our families, and our neighbors.
• Getting involved at the grassroots level to solve problems and build a better future for everyone.
II. Activity
Prior to answering the discussion questions in Part III, think about the following four questions List as many ideas as you can in response to these four questions to aid you in the next section:
1. What does an effective citizen need to know? (How laws are made, etc.)
2. What skills does an effective citizen need? (Speaking, etc.)
3. What attitudes (values, dispositions, and outlooks) does an effective citizen need? (Belief that one person can make a difference, etc.)
4. What does an effective citizen need to do? (Vote, etc.)
Feel free to discuss this with your fellow corps members, supervisors, or other volunteers/staff before delving into the discussion questions.
III. For Discussion
Please answer the following questions and post your answers in the comments section of the blog or email them to Greg. The first two members to submit answers will receive a prize. Also, the member with the most intriguing, unique, and/or thought provoking answers will win a prize.
1. What do you think are the three most important citizenship skills? Explain.
2. What do you think makes a good citizen?
3. What could AmeriCorps/AmeriCorps members do to encourage good citizenship?
4 Comments:
First off, citizenship and being involved in your community is essential to being an engaged resident. There are so many people who I know, young and old, who are just disengaged - fed up with government, etc. Instead of speaking out about their beliefs, they just sit back and gripe. So I think that the three most important citizenship skills would be activism (being an active participant, not a bystander), being open-minded (hearing out all sides of an issue and making an informed decision while remaining tolerant of opposing viewpoints), and education (learning about and teaching others about the governmental system, their rights, choices, and the wonders of being a citizen of the U.S.).
While it is difficult to be active in a certain campaign or proposition while representing the AmeriCorps Fellowship Program, members can encourage youth, young adults, long-standing residents, and all others to be active and engaged in their community - supporting events that educate new voters or driving voters who need rides to the polls on election day. Especially with such an crucial election coming up in less than a week, getting out the vote is a wonderful, non-partisan way to encourage good citizenship and voter turnout.
1.What do you think are the three most important citizenship skills? Explain.
•Active listening is an important skill for creating strong communities and perhaps one of the most difficult to master. In order to make fair and lasting changes, citizens need to be able to listen to each others’ concerns and opinions without judgment. Only after this has happened, can citizens start to work collectively to identify their problems.
•Once a community has identified a problem, they will need to be able to identify the community’s strengths and weaknesses. Self-knowledge/awareness helps citizens maximize their resources while also minimizing the barriers toward a successful resolution. (This is important both on the individual and group level)
•Another important skill for citizens is the ability to be creative and to provide opportunities for others to be creative as well. Most societies run into conflict when people are not allowed to express their beliefs, which in turn manifest into apathy, violence, isolation, and frustration. Creativity allows individuals to express themselves in ways that keep them engaged and eager to participate—even when they don’t always get what they want. Creativity is important for community organizing, opening lines of communication, and finding positive solutions.
2. What do you think makes a good citizen?
•A good citizen is someone who cares enough about their environment and community to want to participate in finding solutions for creating a just and peaceful living space.
•A good citizen is someone who works well with others even as personal conflicts arise.
•A good citizen is someone who will step outside of their own comfort zone and challenge their own views.
•A good citizen is knowledgeable of their rights, informs others about their rights, and takes actions to help people protect their rights in events of injustice.
•A good citizen models positive behavior instead of making judgments.
3. What could AmeriCorps/AmeriCorps members do to encourage good citizenship?
AmeriCorps members can encourage good citizenship by modeling it in their own communities. Although we are technically not allowed to engage in partisan issues while working for AmeriCorps, we can participate in local organizing events and education campaigns in the community on our off-hours. Good citizenship is also not limited to being active in the electoral process; it can be expressed through working committees, creating partnerships between organizational groups, and exposing people around us to new ideas and concepts.
I would like to start by asking everyone what is the first thing that comes to their mind when asked about the word activist.
I believe the word can have a bad connotation among the public in general because it is viewed mainly as someone who is a political activist, acting in favor of a policy; the one who is acting for others and not the person who is taking action to make things better or to change them for the best. The word should be redefined as he or she who takes action to make others take action in becoming activists as citizens. In the long run these citizen leaders would train other citizen leaders to make people take actions rather than whine forever about a situation that displeases them.
A good citizen should help others see what they can't understand or even think about. He or she should have the passion to share his knowledge with others so as to develop and change things in this togetherness.
A good citizen needs to forget about his/her human egocentric character or at least have it under control in order to give to others.
A good citizen is someone who is open-minded and accepts other points of view.
A good citizen loves his/her country and participates in community events to find out about the needs of this community and takes action in offering solutions to those needs.
Americorps members could promote Americorps among other people and businesses to get involved in volunteering. A good citizen is one that volunteers his/her time and knowledge to help others who need them. Volunteering is not very much promoted in my country so this is totally a new way of thinking and acting for me. (MaCristina Navia)
In AmeriCorps, citizenship can mean much more than memorizing names and dates from a history book or spending a Saturday cleaning up a vacant lot. What is citizenship really about, and how can it help you make a real and lasting difference in your own life and the life of your community?
According to dictionary.com citizenship is “(1) the state of being vested with the rights, privileges, and duties of a citizen. (2) the character of an individual viewed as a member of society; behavior in terms of the duties, obligations, and functions of a citizen: an award for good citizenship.” The key word I would like to point out in the definition of citizenship is privilege. According to dictionary.com privilege (as a noun) is “(1) a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most: the privileges of the very rich. (2) a special right, immunity, or exemption granted to persons in authority or office to free them from certain obligations or liabilities: the privilege of a senator to speak in Congress without danger of a libel suit. (3) a grant to an individual, corporation, etc., of a special right or immunity, under certain conditions. (4) the principle or condition of enjoying special rights or immunities. (5) any of the rights common to all citizens under a modern constitutional government: We enjoy the privileges of a free people. (6) an advantage or source of pleasure granted to a person: It's my privilege to be here.” The common theme among the different usages of the word privilege mentioned above is advantage. All of the usages describe some sort of advantage, and advantage cannot exist with out disadvantage. Advantages create a power structure. If citizenship involved being privileged and being privileged means having an advantage then citizenship is really about power. At one time the requirements of full citizenship including being white, male and land owning. Over time the power of the privileged citizen class has been diminished but it still exists today. Immigration and naturalization policies are one example of this. People that are not citizens do not have the same rights as me. Furthermore, I didn’t have to do anything to be a citizen simply because of who I was born to, and where I was born. For those that were not born as citizens of this country it takes interviews, tests and large sums of money to become a citizen. Another example of the inequalities of citizenship is the denial of due process and the protections of the Geneva conventions for people suspected of terrorism. Not only is due process denied for these non-citizens but there have been reports of physical torture through water boarding and stress positions, and psychological torture through sleep depravation and death threats. Yes, citizenship means much more than memorizing names from history books and cleaning a vacant lot. It means power, and creates conflict between those who have citizenship and those that do not. How can I make a real and lasting difference in my own life and the community? I can’t really concisely answer this question without a dense and most likely tautological discussion on structure versus agency. Simply put the only thing I can change is myself. If I decide to become a drug dealer my life and community will be worse. When I decide to serve in AmeriCorps I am making my life and community better. To tie this to the idea of citizenship I can make change in my life and community by living a life that promotes the idea that all people, citizen or not, should have all rights as outlined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
1. What do you think are the three most important citizenship skills? Explain.
Knowledge - Freedom depends on a well informed population.
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be”. –Thomas Jefferson.
Humanity – If a system doesn’t include all people then is not equal. This is why I view citizenship as problematic.
“Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.” – Thomas Payne.
Action – The only way to get things done.
“On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
2. What do you think makes a good citizen?
A good citizen questions everything, even citizenship. She or he attempt to look at all angles of a problem then makes a decision based not on his or her own interest but the interest of humanity.
3. What could AmeriCorps/AmeriCorps members do to encourage good citizenship?
What they are good at that makes both themselves and other people happy.
--Josh Schultz--
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