Every single person in the entire world is a member of a community, whether that community is small or big. In addition, every single person in the entire world is a citizen of the world, a continent, a country, and then a province or state, and city or town. How does every single person in the world know how to be members of communities or just a citizen in general? Growing up, children are taught societal values that most often reflect what could be the “instructions” on how to behave as a member of a community or as a citizen. Citizenship is taught all over the world in every nation, but although the actual definition of citizenship (Active citizenship is the philosophy that citizens should work towards the betterment of their community through economic participation, public, volunteer work, and other such efforts to improve life for all citizens, as well as the political participation in the life of the community, the right to vote, and the right to receive certain protection from the community, as well as obligations) stays generally true for most places you go, the individual meanings of each of these stand for may vary drastically from one country to the next, and sometimes even from one town to the next. For example almost all countries I have ever heard of, besides extreme poverty stricken communities, all require some sort of “economic participation” as stated in the definition above, however “economic participation” definitely does NOT have the same meaning or expectation everywhere you go. In order for every single person to fulfill this responsibility, they must be able to recognize and read their world in order to become “literate” members of their particular community or citizens of their state/ nation.
The photo is of a flyer that was dropped off to my front door by Mr. Bob Bushman who is running for Sherburne County Sheriff. Now, I have lived in Sherburne County almost all of my life, I have other family and many friends that live in Sherburne County. I know the area, the type of people, the quality and type of schools; therefore I am able to read Mr. Bushman’s flyer bulleting his experience, education, and civic involvement to formulate an opinion of his candidacy because I am literate of the expectations of my particular community.
The photo is of a flyer that was dropped off to my front door by Mr. Bob Bushman who is running for Sherburne County Sheriff. Now, I have lived in Sherburne County almost all of my life, I have other family and many friends that live in Sherburne County. I know the area, the type of people, the quality and type of schools; therefore I am able to read Mr. Bushman’s flyer bulleting his experience, education, and civic involvement to formulate an opinion of his candidacy because I am literate of the expectations of my particular community.
Interesting commentary on community. It makes me wonder about what you would think of Mr. Bushman's flyer if you were from outside of Sherburne County. Would you feel the same about it, or would you notice that it is tailored to Sherburne County's needs or expectations? Do all county sheriffs have the same view of their role, and do all counties have the same expectations for their sheriffs? Interesting.
ReplyDeleteDo you think everyone needs to practice citizenry in the same way?
ReplyDeleteAlso, you ask, "How does every single person in the world know how to be members of communities or just a citizen in general?" Do you think every single person DOES know how to be a member of a community? I'm not sure they do.
I like the fact that this political flyer sparked such an insightful posting about citizenship. I know you're committed to bringing multiple texts into your future classroom; this flyer would be a great addition (or the flyers that are around during political campaigns when you're teaching), for a bunch of reasons. It could launch a discussion about citizenship, political literacy, propaganda, and local politics and expectations for citizenship (as Diane pointed out) or leadership. Also, using a campaign poster is a great example of how to vary the level of reading material you make available. I'd be interested to do a readability analysis of the poster to see how "difficult" the text is to read.