Personal development
Citizenship should be seen not as a discrete area or additional work for already overburdened teachers, but rather as a means of delivering educational objectives that are far more important than the number of students with five A to C grades.
If one aim of education (arguably the most important) is to prepare students for the future, we need to educate our children to develop the personal qualities that will enable them to inhabit a future not ravaged by environmental degradation, injustice and inequality. In short, we need to start with a vision for the future, bearing in mind that, unless future generations behave with responsibility and self-restraint, the future of the planet may be at stake. We then need to work through the educational means to develop students with the values to bring this vision about. Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living (a joint publication from IUCN, UNEP and WWF Earthscan) outlines one version of that vision. The values that they believe we should live by – a set of core democratic values – are:
- respect for reasoning
- justice
- respect for truth
- freedom
- fairness
- equality
- acceptance of diversity
- concern for the welfare of others
- cooperation
- peaceful resolution of conflict.
Quite clearly, this vision assumes a very different view of society from that of today. However, for the human race to have a fulfilled, productive and sustained future, it is imperative to move towards this vision. Inman and Buck suggest that the following attributes need to be fostered in students to achieve this vision of the future:
Inman and Buck’s attributesThe aims of citizenship education echo many of these concerns.