Civics and Student Government

As I look forward to next school year I am extremely excited about teaching American Government. I usually am during a semester when there is an election but in 10 years of teaching I don't think any of the elections before have been this historic. The challenge I face, as do teachers in many other subjects, is transfering my enthusiasm and excitement on to my students. Many students do not come from politically active families, some from homes where the parents have never voted. Some do not have access to newspapers or network news. Others may see themselves as victims of a political and government system full of self interest and promises broken and come to the conclusion that their opinion doesn't matter. The argument is justified in many situations. The question is how do we get the youth today to become more involved in civics? How can we get them to realize the impact that they can have on their own future, our future? Textbooks do not put it in the proper context. We have to put them in positions where they can see how government works and see the impact that they can have. In the past three years we have implemented a student member of the district school board. They are nonvoting but they are the voice of the students at board meetings. We have a student council that in the past few years has consulted more and more frequently on matters of dress code and discipline policy, with much success. The issue is that these students that fill these positions are the ones that truly feel that they can make a difference. I believe they are the minority. The majority of the students today feel like they are far removed from contact with government and that government has their own agenda with no accountability towards who they represent. Only during this past year have I believed that this was starting to change, most likely due to the changing of the guard in the American presidency. Education itself actually promotes the lessening of importance of civics. If you examine the statewide and nationwide tests that we have our students take, virtually none of them have any Social Science or Civics questions. Literacy, math, and science take center stage. Four years ago Social Science was dropped from the Illinois PSAE exam. When class size becomes an issue in schools, social sciences tend to be overloaded. It isn't the schools fault, however. National and state boards have not placed the importance on civics that they should. As many of my collegues say, "Social Studies has become the red-headed step child of the four core curricular areas." I recently read a blog entry referring to the impact that civics education is having in developing countries like Afghanistan. (http://www.edutopia.org/node/5585) We don't need to be a developing country for our students to have an impact in civics. Arguments can be made that students need math if they want to become engineers, science if they want to become doctors, English if they want to become writers, but those are things that they become. All of our students are already citizens who have the privilege and duty to participate in our future through civics. Maybe a civics education is more important that people think.