Student Voice and the Teaching of Democracy | Edutopia

Student Voice and the Teaching of Democracy | Edutopia:

Mark Phillips is a columnist for the Marin Independent Journal and the The Answer Sheet. He volunteers with the California Film Institute's Educational Outreach Program and serves on the Board of the Buck Institute for Education. You can find him @MarkPSF on Twitter or on Facebook.

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School's out. Politics is in. Five months of presidential political combat lie ahead. So I'm psyched to revisit the challenge of effectively educating kids to be active participants in our democratic processes. I plan to post a number of columns over the next months that focus on student voice, the teaching of democracy, civic engagement and political literacy. I'm hoping some of you will join the discussion and toss in your two cents.

The prime directives, cutting across all these topics are:

1. To effectively teach democracy, you have to model it.
2. To teach students how to be actively engaged citizens, you have to enable them to practice active engagement.

We get the electorate and government we deserve, and our schools play a critical part in this.