One first-grade teacher integrated character education into the existing curriculum. She used a job chart to teach responsibility and teamwork, and helped the class develop a constitution. Her framework was based on the Character Counts! Coalition's crucial character traits: respect, responsibility, trustworthiness, fairness, caring, and…

Despite differing opinions on discussing nuclear policy in the curriculum and how students are best prepared for citizenship, educators can work together to assert the right of United States citizens to have access to information necessary to participate in the policymaking process. (MLF)

Individual autonomy and responsibility to society through declared goals of education can be realized only when teachers provide a learning environment in which pupils are encouraged to make autonomous judgments in an environment of cooperative relationships. (JD)

The challenge to educators is to structure the problem of preventing nuclear war by examining how such a war might start and specific routes to prevention. (MLF)

A Paterson (New Jersey) teacher criticizes well-meaning prescriptions for educating students for a civil society. Reforms based on skills-based instruction and test-driven assessment are failing. Inequality is the core issue. Schools cannot compensate for class and racial inequalities, particularly if inequitable funding mechanisms persist.…

Through development of new mission statement and work of cross-disciplinary committees, Ohio high school adopted Coalition of Essential Schools principles while fashioning interdisciplinary Global Connections program. Aim was to maintain academic integrity and empower tenth graders to take an active role in shaping their world. Instructional goals…

With workerless factories, virtual companies, and shrinking governments becoming reality, nations will be hard-pressed to employ millions of "surplus" young people in an increasingly automated global economy. An elitist knowledge sector cannot accommodate enough displaced workers. To advance the goals of civil education, educators must…

Storypath, which originated in Scotland, is a powerful tool for helping students acquire the knowledge, skills, values, and dispositions needed to become responsible citizens. Storypath uses basic story components (setting, characters, and plot) to organize the social-studies curriculum into meaningful, memorable learning experiences. Storypath…

Sponsored by West Chester University and the local League of Women Voters, the Kids Around Town Program is helping some Pennsylvania elementary school children develop responsible citizenship by involving them in community service activities. Students select a public policy issue affecting them. This issue serves as a springboard for study and…

The concept of public education is on national trial and is being exploited by interests intending to train our children to be good customers, rather than good citizens. Market terminology cannot express ideals of a free, universal education. The real choice is whether all children will receive an excellent education irrespective of their place of…

Both the Civic Achievement Award Program (CAAP) established by Congress in 1987 and CAAP in Action are now funded entirely by Burger King Corporation. The two programs, involving about 1 million students yearly, are interdisciplinary, link academic learning and research activities with civic participation, and foster closer school-community…

John Goodlad believes the imminent teacher shortage could provide an opportunity for centers of pedagogy to prepare reading and math head teachers to work with teams of primary teachers. By democratizing school conditions, students could be educated for "civitas," or human goodness. Technology is no substitute for human infrastructure.…

In Boston, City on a Hill Charter School's commitment to civic education challenges the notion that charter schools are inherently privatizing forces in public education reform. Through expanded choice, inclusive decision making, and localized accountability, charter schools can be a democratizing force that serves multiple publics, including…

Concern over the moral condition of American society is spawning a new character-education movement requiring teachers to create a moral community, practice moral discipline, foster classroom democracy, teach values through the curriculum, stress cooperative learning and conflict resolution, and foster caring beyond the classroom. (MLH)

Virtually every public issue depends on data, projections, inferences, and systemic thinking. Besides basic mathematics skills, numeracy (quantitative literacy) encompasses estimating tolerances and errors, constructing complex computer simulations, using flowcharts, drawing inferences, and calculating in three dimensions. The narrow…