Palmer Trinity School

Our Civic Duty in a Changing World By Peter Masteller, Religious Studies and Kenley Smith, English Department Because the strength of a democracy depends on its citizens, citizenship should entail more than voting, paying your taxes, waving a flag, not breaking laws, and taking care of yourself. A strong, healthy democracy requires critical thinkers who possess strong convictions while remaining open-minded. This is why the quality of a democracy depends in large part on the quality of the education of its citizens.  While this process is neither tidy nor easy, it can be transfigurative. Awareness alone is insufficient for good citizenship; for a democracy to flourish, its citizens also need critical thinking skills.  This was especially evident during the recent election when we were bombarded with incredible amounts of information. Some of this information was credible, some was not, and most of it was strongly biased. Many people are trying to convince us to think, purchase, believe, and vote as they do, so if our students lack critical thinking skills their choices could be easily swayed by false logic, misrepresentations of the truth, or superficial but popular sentiments.  A necessary component of this education is an awareness of complicated realities.  The tendency to avoid the confusing and uncomfortable aspects of our These expectations of democracy world is understandable, but it are one reason why so many does not equip our students to teachers at Palmer Trinity teach understand the world in which in a seminar style or employ the they live.  This conviction drives Harkness methodology.  Citizens many of the curricular choices in in a democracy need to possess Palmer Trinity's Humanities classes.  information, but they need to be When a seventh grader reads about able to go beyond the facts to find China's Cultural Revolution in Red truth on their own. By thinking Scarf Girl or a sophomore reads actively and analytically instead about the Cambodian genocide of just passively consuming and in First They Killed My Father, repeating information, our students they are learning that they live in are training themselves to become a profoundly broken world that innovative leaders rather than requires healing.  When eighth knowledgeable followers. graders read To Kill a Mockingbird and juniors read The White Man's Education is not an end in itself; Burden, they learn that the pride Students in the Honors Seminar in Religion in America: education always has many that they have in the United Margaret Cookson, Carla Forns, Tiffani Hiler, Christian purposes, such as acquiring job States should be accompanied by a Jaffe, Lisa Krstajic, Luis Lopez-Blazquez, Peter Ovelmen, training or achieving economic Laura Portuondo, Josefina Rochette, Joan Ronstadt, Joey sobering understanding that their Santilli, Paulina Toro, Isabelle Verwaay, Adam Wilson. security. However, as teachers our country has not always lived up to priority is guiding our students to its own admirable ideals.  These lessons cultivate good citizenship become strong citizens and, more broadly, human beings. If we are because once students are aware of the prevalence of oppression in the successful, by the time students graduate from Palmer Trinity they world, they are better equipped to identify and oppose it when they will have both the skills and the desire to work for progress and social encounter it in their own lives.  justice in their communities, their nation, and their world. 21

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