Helping young citizens make sense of a volatile world

Those horrific TV images of the attacks in the United States continue to haunt us. September 11th marked a turning point in human affairs. World views are challenged. Basic values are revisited. Initial shockwaves are followed by aftershocks that probe all areas of society.

In homes and classrooms, parents and teachers are struggling to help young people make sense of current world events. Education systems are challenged to respond in some way.

Very soon after the attacks, the US Department of Education posted, on its website, helpful guidelines and suggestions. The emphasis on listening to and caring for students was strong. Education secretary Rod Paige promised over $6 million to schools "directly impacted by the terrorist attacks". These funds can be used "to provide counselling for students and teachers, hire substitute teachers, add to security, clean up damaged schools, retain experts in long-term crisis planning".

As many who have been touched by local tragedies will testify, Irish schools can be at their pastoral best when students are affected by violent crimes or accidents. The response by school leaders and teachers is often immediate, imaginative and sensitive. Regular timetables are adjusted and a creative mixture of assemblies, vigils, counselling of students, religious services and other special events help ease the pain and assist students and their families, and teachers themselves, deal with what appears inexplicable.

In such situations, after the return to "normality", educators will frequently ask questions about what they are teaching. What's really important in the curriculum? How well are young people learning about tolerance, conflict resolution, a multicultural society? How do schools achieve that aim, expressed in the 1995 White Paper, "to create tolerant, caring and politically aware members of society"? The attacks have given a new urgency to this debate in the US and in this State. As society changes, so too must the school curriculum.

The last decade has seen many changes in Irish schools. At times the underlying trends and patterns in those changes are not always clear. One emphasis has been on "education for citizenship". It's there in the Transition Year, the Leaving Certificate Applied and in civic, social and political education (CSPE), the new Junior Cert subject.

You can see it in the 1998 Education Act's support for student councils in schools. The National Children's Strategy's vision of an Ireland which respects young people as "citizens with a valued contribution to make and a voice of their own" is part of the same broad trend. In Northern Ireland, the recent decision to prioritise human rights education is another example.

Internationally, there is renewed interest in "education for citizenship". Some of this results from another defining event, the collapse of communism. In the emerging democracies of eastern Europe, for example, "education for citizenship" is regarded as vital in building society. While subjects such as history, geography, religious education and literature can make important contributions to citizenship, classes specifically related to civic, social and political issues are also needed.

A concern for citizenship education is based on a view that sees citizenship as an activity as well as a status. Democracy as a value has to be lived out; it does not maintain itself automatically.

Active participation is at the heart of the new CSPE course. Seven core concepts are explored and examined as they operate at individual, community, national and international levels. The CSPE teacher has to connect these concepts of democracy, rights and responsibilities, human dignity, development, interdependence, law and stewardship to students' lives. Events like those of September 11th bring such ideas into sharp focus.

Active teaching is complemented by "action projects". With 60 per cent of the marks awarded for reporting on action projects, they get serious attention. Many parents of this year's 58,000-plus Junior Cert CSPE students know this at first hand. Actions projects have ranged from meaningful engagements by early teens with county councillors, TDs, garda, Travellers, refugees and others, to recycling projects and campaigning for improved local amenities and much more.

As with other curriculum innovations, CSPE is having teething problems. There's not enough time given to the subject; 70 hours over three years works out at one class period per week. Despite this, many teachers are making significant contributions to "education for citizenship". With another period or two each week much more would be possible.

Many schools build on the CSPE experience in Transition Year and in the Leaving Certificate Applied programme. But, as some students ask: why is there no follow-on subject at Leaving Certificate? Surely it is time that students have the option of studying such a subject - call it social or contemporary studies, the title is incidental - as part of their Leaving Certificate.

Educational priorities are political issues. We didn't need an international crisis to tell us all this. But current events - and the questions children and young people are asking - remind us of the urgency of better "education for citizenship".