An active citizen is a citizen who helps yourself and your society. To help yourself is to eat right, work out, and abiding by the law and causing no harm. To help your society is to attend monthly city meetings in order to be informed on what needs to be done in the community, picking up trash by the road, raking leaves, etc. Another highly important task is to, of course, vote! As a citizen, it is one’s civic duty to vote. Voting a task one must do once they reach the legal age. Every vote counts and can make a significant impact in the community. To be an active citizen allows one to make the difference he or she wishes to see in the world. In doing so, one can perform small acts of kindness whether helping at a school, or volunteering at an animal shelter. Volunteering makes the community a much nicer place to live, which in turn attracts other people to want to live in that community. In Pipher’s “Reluctant Activists,” she states “action has always been my healing tonic.” Active citizenship is also being aware of the political system in that community, and being currently involved in issues that he or she is compassionate about. It is one of the many first steps towards a healthy and successful society especially in the United States.
What is the importance of active citizenship, you may ask? Well, active citizenship gives citizens the right to vote, and have an all-volunteer force. It also gives its citizens the right to help make choices that will affect laws and taxes. Being an active citizen, one pays taxes through their life, and when they retire, they are able to receive social security every month.
According to Block’s “From Leadership to Citizenship,” “citizenship is our capacity to create for ourselves what we had sought from our leaders” and that taking the energy out of leadership takes us to the adventure of citizenship. Analyzing the elements of citizenship, citizenship is people’s way of agreeing to “receive rights and privileges from the community and, in do doing, to pay for them through our willingness to live within certain boundaries and act in the interest of the whole” (Block, 3). We ignore the success of the collective and only celebrate the achievements of the individuals because of our favoritism towards monarchy and our thoughts in the centrality of the leader. He argues that if we leave leadership alone and let it be, and turn our attention to citizenship, we would have the awareness and understanding to “create accountable institutions, which is an important step toward an accountable culture, which is the essence of democracy” (Block, 6).
According to Kouzes’s “Leadership is Everyone’s Business,” he states that leadership is an “observable set of skills and abilities that are useful whether one is in the executive suite or on the front line” (Kouze, 2). Leadership cannot be passed down to a new generation, and it is not something someone can interpret as if it is a foreign language; it is something that a person must learn, a skill that must be acquired through a series of experiences. Growth through leadership is similar to self-growth. Kouze uses the comparison that engineers have computers, musicians have instruments and leaders have only themselves. The only thing needed for leadership is the drive to want it and the “mastery of the art of leadership comes from mastery of the self” (Kouze, 5).
The Social Change Model aims to collaborate and is concerned with nurturing positive social change. The model examines leadership development from three different perspectives: the individual, the group, and the community/society. The group mainly focuses on interacting between the individual and the collective; the society mainly focuses on bringing about change for the good of the group; the individual emphasizes on the development of personal qualities, self-awareness, and personal values. All three parts of the Social Change Model of Leadership Development flow with one another. Its goal is to improve student learning and development; mainly centers on self-knowledge and leadership competence.
Active citizen participation is also highly essential in the medical field. According to the article “Towards Designing for Equity: Active Citizen Participation in eHealth,” one may argue whether active citizen participation is beneficial by targeting organizations that best represent individuals’ best interests or individuals alone. Either way, “active citizen participation aspires to greater transparency and accountability with government, at local, regional, and national level.”
In the article “Active citizens, good citizens, and insouciant bystanders: The educational implications of Chinese university students’ civic participation via social networking,” a study explores how Chinese students use technology and the wonders of social network to perform and participate in active civic activities. They found that students who are highly engaged with civic issues; their online activities are correlated with their course of study. Lin Ke and Hugh Starkey argue that active citizens are those “who tend to obey the law, be polite and well-behaved, respect individual rights, address moral virtues of care and concern for others, be good neighbours, and generally relegate ideas of the good life to their private sphere” (Ke and Starkey, 52).
According to Mujumdar’s online article “From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States can Change the World,” he defines active citizenship as the obligations and rights that “link individuals to the state, including paying taxes, obeying laws and exercising the full range of political, civil and social rights.” The rights are used by active citizens to enhance their civil or political life by getting involved in the formal economy or in politics.
There are plenty of opportunities for students here at Virginia Tech can display the university’s motto, “Ut Prosim.” One opportunity is communicating with VT Engage. Students can go to their website and see the plethora of volunteer opportunities they offer for anyone who is interested in giving back to the community. Another way for students to live out Ut Prosim is by doing Relay For Life and The Big Event in the spring. Ut Prosim isn’t just a motto; it is a way of life. At first, students see it as just a motto, but after giving back to the community and seeing the impact it has not only for themselves but also for other people, it is definitely something we live by as a Hokie. As of now, Virginia Tech is doing an amazing job with embodying Ut Prosim and following its principles. However, doing more events that everyone can join would emphasize the motto “That I May Serve.” The two big events (Relay for Life and The Big Event) happen in the spring and before that, nothing really happens. We need to show how dedicated and proud we are as Hokies and as a whole by working together.
In order to actively encourage other students to become active citizens on campus or within their communities, I would display what an active citizen would do. I would be a role model for students so they know what an active citizen is and what they do. In the spring, I am thinking about running for class office and really embodying Ut Prosim. In high school, I was involved with class office, and I loved giving back and helping the school. I also got to interact with the other students whom I would not necessarily see myself being friends with. It definitely widened my perspective and saw the diversity in the school. I want to bring my experiences from high school here to Tech and see where it can take me.
As an active citizen, I have given back to the community multiple ways whether it is volunteering at the New River Valley or abiding by the law. Moreover, I am more than just a volunteer. After volunteering for the St. Francis Service Dogs, I have taken initiative to spread awareness about the non-profit organization. The guy who works there spends his free time training the dogs for the disabled. The only money they get is from the government and from donations. Seeing how passionate and dedicated he was really inspired me and made me realize that people need to know more about this organization. Volunteering this semester definitely changed my views. It has made me become more aware that there are organizations out there dedicated to helping other people, and they are doing it for free. This shows that there is no altruism behind their service and that they do this to help other people. This made me realize that it is possible to do something that doesn’t benefit you and only benefit other people. I think I am on the Conscientious Citizen continuum because I am now more concerned with the “how” and “why” something is the way it is. I am curious about the organizations and issues, and I want to learn more about them.
Works Cited:
Block, Peter. "From leadership to citizenship." Insights on Leadership: Service, Stewardship, Spirit, and Servant-leadership. Ed. Larry C. Spears,New York: Wiley,1998. 87-95. Print.
Kouzes, James M., and Barry Z. Posner. The Leadership Challenge. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2007. Print.
"Towards Designing for Equity: Active Citizen Participation in EHealth." ProQuest. Emerald, 1999. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.
Lin Ke, and Hugh Starkey. "Active Citizens, Good Citizens, and Insouciant Bystanders: The Educational Implications of Chinese University Students' Civic Participation via Social Networking." 12.1 (2014): n. pag. Ingentaconnect. London Review of Education IOE Press. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.
Mujumdar, N. A. "From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States Can Change the World." ProQuest. N.p., Oct.-Nov. 2012. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.