Civic Education: Civic Education Through Civic Engagement

• Publication year: 2005
• Citation: Vol. 2005 No. 12

Vermont Bar Journal 2005.

December 2005 - #1. CIVIC EDUCATION: Civic Education Through Civic Engagement

The Vermont Bar Journal

#163, December, 2005, Volume 31, No. 3

SPECIAL FOCUS: CIVIC EDUCATION

Civic Education Through Civic Engagement

by Michael Palmer

"In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge. On its progress depends that of all the others."

Alexis de Tocqueville

Ann's Story

There is nothing unusual about Ann. She is not the CEO of any company, not the head of the United Way, not the president of the Rotary Club, not an elected official, not a member of the school board. She is not on anyone's list of "civic leaders." She is an ordinary mother, going about her daily affairs like most everyone else in her small town.

But Ann does not like war. She does not like the killing, the maiming, the destruction, the disruption, and the suffering that war always brings. She particularly does not like the war in Iraq. For over two years she has stood with others every Saturday morning in silent witness for peace. She has written letters and emails.

Then her Congress and President enacted a law requiring high schools to provide military recruiters with the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of all students. Ann learned that military recruiters were coming to the local campus. Ann heard that the recruiters understandably were highlighting only the positive benefits of serving in the military. You know: "See the world. Get a college education. Serve your country with pride. Be all that you can be."

Ann also heard that recruiters were glossing over or totally failing to mention the fine print, aspects of the deal that could lead to extended involuntary enlistments under the Army's stop-loss program. She wondered where the name "stop loss" could have come from. She thought about Goldie Hawn in the movie Private Benjamin, bemoaning the difference between the Army the recruiters promised her and the slog-through-the-mud-shut-up-and-do-as-you're-told Army she was in: "Where are the condos? I joined the Army with cute little condos in Europe."

And no one seemed to be telling the students about alternative ways to serve their country through VISTA, the Peace Corps, Americorps, the American Friends Service Committee, and similar organizations. Or how they might join with millions of others to promote peace both here and abroad.

Ann decided to go to school, like the military recruiters, and provide some missing information. Ann wanted students to know that they could be listed as conscientious objectors when they registered with the Selective Service Board. What Ann did not anticipate was that the school officials would tell her she could come on campus, but only to promote non-military programs. She would not be permitted to say anything negative about the military or to talk about what the military contract really says.

So Ann did an ordinary thing - ordinary if you live in the United States. She started gathering other people together who thought, as she did, that she and others should be able to go to school to tell the "rest of the story." At stake were the lives and souls of young people not even old enough to drink alcohol legally. Ann thought they have a right to know what they might be getting themselves into when they sign up. Ann found other people who shared her conviction and before long they were gathering information about their legal rights, determining ways to involve a larger community, holding bake sales, developing strategies, and figuring out how to...