On Civics
My youngest son, Blake, was just given an award for earning high marks on a Civics and American government assessment and for engaging in local civics activities.
In an era where civics seems to be increasingly pushed aside for other ideologies, it does my heart good as a parent and as a proud citizen of my country that my children are not only interested in history and civics, but that they take their citizenship seriously.
My prior post mentioned the short film that my son and one of his best friends just filmed. The film is based on a true story of a photographer during WWII. If this one performs well at Sundance, Cannes, and other film festivals, they hope to make other WWII-era shorts (and possibly, full-feature) documenting historical stories that need to be told.
Why does this mean so much to me as a parent?
Because life is a journey.
On that journey, we try, we fail, we learn, we push onward, and then do it again. While success in life (however you define success) is never guaranteed, I would make a strong argument that learning and growth is success in its own right.
If the “learn” part of that process is removed, there is no opportunity of “pushing onward.”
What was it Churchill said?
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
The same holds true for any country: if history and the mistakes, errors, and errant ways of the past are not known and learned from, we are bound to repeat the same.
It is the responsibility of every citizen of every country to understand the past, learn from it, and advocate for not repeating it–whether that means repeating the past of one’s own country or learning from the tragedies of others.
My three children love history and they love understanding the responsibilities, the burden, and the duty associated with freedom, democracy, and opportunity.
The bottom-line: may we all take time today to reflect upon our responsibility, burden, and duty of citizenship today, and work to make today–in our world–a little brighter for today than yesterday.
May it be so!