Britain Seeks Its Essence / Studying Civic Education

Both Hahn’s article Britain Seeks Its Essence and Lyhall’s New York Times article brought up the question of what it means to be a citizen of one’s country. Lyall discussed the search for a motto to define what it means to be British and Hahn explored citizenship education within schools. Hahn explained that even though citzenship education is not as important in Brittan as it is in other western countries, a sense of citizenship is still instilled in the people. On a similar note, Lyall proved that the majority of the british feel that they are defined enough as a nation that they don’t need a motto to distinguish themselves.

            Unlike what Hahn says, I don’t feel that citizenship education was of central importance at all in my education. Being in a more eclectic community in college with people from all over the country has given me more of a sense of what being an American means, but before that I feel as though I identified more with my local area. It just seems very vague to me to say “I’m from the United States” and that it says more about me to say that I’m from New England or that I’m a Vermonter. Perhaps it is different in other schools around the country but I really do not think of the U.S. as a place that places a strong emphasis on citizenship education.