[September 9, 2015] The great debate over the mass refugee movement from the Middle East into Europe and general immigration into the United States rests on one’s perception of good citizenship. Few people would oppose immigration if those coming into their country became contributing citizens. The more important question before our leaders is how do you improve citizenship?
Here in the United States a new organization was founded to do just that. First, to identify what it takes to be a good citizen and then create the cultural expectation to engage young people to be better citizens. That organization is The Franklin Project. The founders envision “a future in which a year of full-time national service is a cultural expectation, a common opportunity, and a civic rite of passage for every young American.”1
The concept is that a service year for young people will do good work and solve problems but will become better Americans in the process. Historically countries put serious attention to educating their young to what good citizenship was about and afforded them opportunities to learn more about it and practice it. For example, the worldwide organization of the Boy Scouts had good citizenship in their community, their nation, and the world as one of its original goals.2
Those in the Franklin Project believe in the idea that citizenship requires more from each of us than is currently expected. Thus a service year, paid with a modest stipend, would unite diverse populations in a common purpose and help cultivate the next generation of leaders. In the United States many leaders have recognized that teaching good citizenship has fallen into the dustbin of old fashioned ideas. The need to turnaround this trend is up to great leaders.
Assimilation and the sharing of experiences will work to help bring people together and help make them become functioning members of society. How do we improve citizenship? Many of this nation’s best leaders have said that a carefully designed program of a service year will go a long way to achieving this goal. We wish them the best.
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- http://www.franklinproject.org/theory_and_vision
- Recently, the Boy Scouts of America and the James M. Stewart Museum Foundation announced a new award for Boy Scouts – the James M. Stewart Good Citizenship Award: http://jimmy.org/citizenship-award/