Children are the future of the world, so encouraging civic engagement is vital to ensuring that society continues to prosper as time passes. Most children do not automatically know how to get involved in the community though, which means it is up to teachers and parents to teach and model this behavior. At first glance, teaching civic engagement may seem hard, especially to a person who is new at teaching, but it can be taught just as easily as reading or math. There are many ways that will help teachers in this facet of education, making civic engagement attainable for all students.
Guest speakers are a great way for students to learn about ways to be involved. Leaders of the community can come and discuss what they do and how they contribute. These speakers often come prepared with information on how the students can be involved as well. Should this option be unavailable for some reason, teachers can organize clean-up and beautification projects. These projects can involve cleaning up and beautifying a part of the school or even a community park. In either case, the community becomes nicer, and the students become involved.
Teachers may also consider an entrepreneur project for students to complete. The teacher can help students learn about the different aspects of a business from management to production in a series of lessons that ends in some sort of economics fair for students to showcase what they have learned. Of course, students can also be assigned a reading-buddy, in which older students will read with younger students. Beyond improving the reading skills of all students, this can help students learn the importance of being involved with and helping community members.
Civic engagement is vital to the prosperity of communities, and students need to be taught of this importance. Knowing that being involved is important is not enough though. Students must also be taught how to become involved and then encouraged to keep up the involvement. Students who are taught to love civic engagement become more involved in the community, and they are much more likely to teach their children and students. Using the various strategies presented here or by coming up with other methods, educators should have great success in inspiring civic engagement.