Lance Bennett on rethinking civic learning standards

May 18th, 2008 at 11:30am Lance Bennett Permalink

Lance Bennett (Civic Learning Online project director) discusses the citizen identity shift and implications for civic learning in on and offline environments. If social identities and learning preferences are changing among digital natives, shouldn’t we rethink how young people are introduced to civic life? 

It seems clear that teens are motivated by participatory media cultures, and this includes politics. The volume of multimedia production in the Obama campaign is just one indicator of how public life can become more vital for young citizens when they are involved in creating and sharing media content. Yet civic education in most schools remains largely a textbook exercise aimed at individual evaluation based on conventional knowledge standards. Few students have the opportunity to work in teams, interact with local communities, or communicate their experiences using digital media that capture their imagination. Outside of schools, online communities offer great potential for engaging the creative energies of young people. However, few of those environments are built on any recognized standards about civic learning or civic communication skill sets that users can take away. It is time to rethink skills and learning standards appropriate for digital natives so that practitioners and youth workers can reach larger youth populations beyond those who already bring the requisite skills and motivation with them. Bennett’s report A Generational Shift in Citizen Identity opens this conversation.

Entry Filed under: civic learning goals, digital learning skills