The opportunity to create social change is always present, but it only works if citizens have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed for democratic action. These are the products of civic education.
Children’s opportunities to engage in civic activity often need to be noticed. This is a shame because civic learning in early childhood can challenge simplistic ideas of citizenship rooted in obedience and conformity.
Inspires Children to Take Action
There are tens of thousands of picture books published that teachers might use in their classrooms.
Kids learn how elections work and the history of voting rights in this lively informational text illustrated with colorful characters. Resist profiles people who stood up for their beliefs and inspires readers to fight for their values. This book is an essential tool for a generation of citizens ready to shape the world.
Engages Children in Learning
Conventional civic education efforts tend to position young children as future or emergent citizens. Thus, they rarely offer experiences recognizing them as current civic actors.
A simple rhyming story of how bills become laws will inspire young activists to launch their first letter-writing campaign to legislative leaders. Civic education book for children even features a respectful amount of civic disagreement, a lesson that will stick with kids long after they leave the classroom.
Across many school districts, social studies curriculum frameworks call for teachers to expose students to maps/geography, history, and civics through books. Consequently, there are likely tens of thousands of picture books teachers might encounter with their students. Using open coding, this study identifies themes related to civics education in the countless books teachers might use with their students. The findings demonstrate that it is possible to foster civic action in elementary schools, even with limited time and resources.
Inspires Children to Think Critically
In a time when political trust and a shared standard of truth are breaking down, empowering children to think critically and to participate in civic discourse is more critical than ever. This book explores how teaching civic education in contentious times can foster critical thinking and encourage students to engage with others across lines of deep disagreement.
Using laugh-out-loud cartoony illustrations, this book shows how the Constitution gives all citizens many rights, including the right to vote, freedom of religion and speech, and the right to be heard in court when accused of crimes or civil wrongs. It also explains that the Constitution does not guarantee these rights to the government but instead to individuals and communities.
Most literature in civic education positions young children as future or emergent citizens, leaving them needing experiences that recognize their current capacity to be civic actors.
Inspires Children to Become Leaders
Using books to teach civics lessons can support students to become leaders in their classrooms, schools, communities, and global society.
Many teachers have curated collections and guides for using picture books in a civics curriculum.
Children and teachers can use books to inspire their learners to act on their communities’ behalf by celebrating shared social practices. These community practices help to build a culture of democracy. These practices may be more necessary than ever in our polarized political environment where democratic trust and a common standard of truth are broken. This is especially true for young children. Our education system must recognize this and provide them with opportunities to act as citizens of their community.