Preparing Active Citizens: Exploring Ethical Issues of Providing Educative Experiences for Youths
progress of the students’ project will not be impeded by foreseeable circumstances. When this communication occurs, issues can be foreseen and projects modified, providing both educative experiences for students while limiting political, social, and economic concerns for school administration and political leaders.
Connecting with the Community Although the considerations explored to this point have focused on immediate classroomand school-based issues, a final consideration in creating educative civic experiences for students involves enabling them to have meaningful interactions with outside community members. Although this consideration is discussed last, it is by far the most important for providing a moral education. Interactions with the community take students outside of their immediate classroom context and allow them to begin to view themselves as viable members of their communities. Many schools are not used to looking outside of their walls for curricular support, despite the wealth of organizations and resources that often exist just beyond their doors. Similarly, many community organizations are not prepared for this shift in attention either. To be sure, community organizations often view themselves as serving a vital role within the larger educational system. Frequently, this role is to work with youth either as mentors, supervisors, or service providers at the end of the school day. Owing to the uniqueness of relationships developed and interactions had within this after-school sphere, community organizations often see themselves as important to education in general but separate from “formal education.” The moral education described here—the one that consistently references “educative experiences” embedded within the formal curriculum—is developed when student-led action bridges in-school learning with real-life experience. The frequent disconnect between these two spheres perpetuates a common divide between school-based and community-based workers, to the detriment of students and their educative experiences. In order for meaningful relationships to be formed between students focused on a particular issue and community members engaged in the same, some practices should be followed. Specifically, students must be taught to thoroughly research organizations with which they want to associate and to determine if and how a partnership would serve each party involved. Students must then be able to compellingly persuade mentors, teachers, and school administrators that these relationships are mutually beneficial and have the potential to be lasting.
Students benefit from added support from community members on their project, including new contacts and information, ideas, and networks. Community partners strengthen their coalitions by involving students and have the opportunity to directly reach, and interact with, a valuable and often-targeted audience. It is within this collaboration that student-led (and mentor/teacher/administrator-supported) work achieves its educative purpose, pushing students to apply their knowledge and skills to real-world interactions. When one group of students decided to form a relationship with a local community health organization, for example, they were encouraged to read the organization’s mission statement, list of services, and history. Armed with this information, they were asked to argue why the school, led by the students themselves, should make a connection with the program. In their presentation, the students compared this organization to a number of similar groups in the local area and suggested that it was the least politically charged and the only one able to support the health education needs of the high school students. With that analysis, the school administration allowed the students to forge the connection, allowing them access to the clinic’s resources for a health fair that the students were organizing. In the end, workers from the clinic even attended the fair and physically supported the students’ work at the high school. Since the relationships within their school structure were managed appropriately, these students were empowered to take charge of the important activity of building relationships between their school and members of the community. Not only was this an authentic experience, requiring students to use skills that they had learned through Generation Citizen and their traditional classes, such as collaboration and persuasive speech, but it was also an experience in community leadership and ownership. In being allowed and encouraged to make thoughtful connections, the students were able to demonstrate to themselves and to the community that they could lead, make good decisions, and develop relationships. With the relationship formed, students were able to create their own educative civic experience.
Perceived safety issues can easily derail action civics projects.
Processes and Outcomes Within the discussion of these four ethical considerations, the tangible outcomes of civic action (e.g., a changed policy, a cleaner street, reduced gang violence, etc.) have been intentionally set aside. At the beginning of each project, there is tremendous hope that 12
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