I never knew what an active citizen was until this semester in the Community Engagement class. I always thought it was just like it sounds, being involved in your community. But I quickly realized that it is so much more than writing your name down to join a club or participating in a community service project.
An active citizen is someone who cares about their community and is fully engulfed in it. Active citizens are a crucial part of a well-functioning society. The word active means that they are constantly engaging in activities to better themselves and their community. They are a necessary and needed aspect to a community. They want to make a change and an impact. They want to make the world a better place and make that evident in their lives.
The Active Citizenship Continuum
The Active Citizenship Continuum is the model that displays going from a member to a volunteer to a conscientious citizen to an active citizen. The continuum is meant to help people of a society see themselves progress towards being a lead contributor to their community. Active citizens are people who place a high priority on community in their values and life choices. They do not need to take action on every social issue that comes up, but rather, they see the world through that lens. They take action on issues that matter and are important to them and their surrounding communities. This continuum gives a language to the transition from apathy to action (Tyrrell).
A person starts out as a member. This means that he/she is not concerned with their role in social problems. They see issues around them but do not consider how to act. This does not make a member a bad person, it just means that they have not had to face societal injustices thus far in their life or that they are focused on other day-to-day things (Montrose). To begin making the transition from a member to a volunteer, one needs to ask themselves, “why does volunteering matter and why do I do it?” One needs to find their interests and passions and talk and connect with others that share them and then learn more and go deeper into the issues.
After being a member, someone moves into the Volunteer phase. In the volunteer phase, someone is well intentioned but not well-educated about social issues. They try to tailor their service and their actions to the needs of the population. They begin to seek more information and education on the issue. Even if they become more educated about the issue and what it is, they are still often unaware or not concerned with the underlying causes and social issues (Tyrrell). Volunteers are usually someone who is just doing community service to get required hours done or are doing one time service. They do not understand why they are doing what they are doing and often are just focused on building resumes or getting involved (Montrose).
After being a volunteer, a person grows into being a conscientious citizen. The key characteristics of a conscientious citizen is that they are concerned about discovering the root problem of why service is important, what can be done to help, and why the organization or agency exists (Tyrrell). A person in this phase tries to think about the issue they are dealing with from different views. They think beyond the face-value of the issue and thinks about the causes. Instead of just looking at the issue from the outside, they dig deeper into why it is an issue. They become more involved and concerned with the agency’s or organization’s that they are working with needs instead of their own.
After being a conscientious citizen, a person becomes an active citizen. This is often considered the “Golden Standard” (Tyrrell). An active citizen is one who puts the community’s needs above their own. The community becomes a major priority in a person’s values and life choices. Instead of just taking part in community service, an active citizen seeks to find solutions to the issues to better serve their community. They often seek work in the community service field and seek more service experiences surrounding social issues. They make diligent efforts to advocate for the community in their daily life and make daily efforts to educate themselves with the social issues they deal with (Montrose).
Community
I strive to have a community as stated in Block. He describes community as the experience of belonging. He says we are in a community each time we find a place where we belong. The word belong means the experience of being at home; it is the opposite of thinking that wherever I am, I would be better off somewhere else. I fell in love with these definitions of community that Block gave because they gave such a deeper meaning to a community. I have always thought of a community as a place where you share like interests and values, but it is so much more than that. It is a sense of trust and worthiness of belonging to a group; a space where you can be yourself and not fear judgment.
Block also describes how much we are lacking a sense of community in our world today and how much we need it. He says, “our isolation occurs because western culture, our individualistic narrative, the inward attention of our institutions and our professions, and the messages from our media all fragment us. We are broken into pieces.” He describes that there are gaps between sectors of our cities and neighborhoods; businesses, schools, social service organizations, churches, and government operate in their own worlds; each one is working hard on their own purpose. Each one works towards their own goal without considering the others and how they affect or could affect the others. Block describes our communities as silos, “they are a collection of institutions and programs operating near one another but not overlapping or touching.” This dividedness is what makes it so hard to create a positive interdependence because everyone is working on their own. This fragmentation is especially evident in cities and rural towns because of the labels in cities and the isolation in the spaciousness and comfort of suburbs (Block). The labels placed on people in cities are of “homeless,” “ex-offenders,” “disabled,” or “at risk.” These labels instantly separate people and make them different from those who are not in the same situation. This is not what a community should be about. It should be about stripping away labels to make everyone feel like they have worth and are equal with other people. The effects of fragmentation in our society shows up in low voter turnout, the struggle to sustain volunteerism, and the large portion of the population who remain disengaged (Block). In order to achieve the sense of community that Block described, we must get rid of all the fragmentation that exists throughout our society.
To make this transformation of ridding fragmentation and fostering community, Block says that we must not focus on individual transformation but the transformation of the community as a whole. It is described in Block’s book that community health, educational achievement, local economic strength, and other measures of community well-being were dependent on the level of social capital that exists in a community. Social capital is a community’s well-being and has to do with the quality of the relationships and the cohesion that exists among its citizens (Block). It is the extent to which we extend hospitality and affection to one another (Block). To create this ideal sense of community that we are striving for, we need to create a community where each citizen feels connected to those around them and knows that their safety and success are dependent on the success of all others (Block). Have deeper conversations, talk to people you might not always talk to, pay attention to the little things, make people feel loved and wanted.
Leadership
I used to never consider myself a leader. I did not see myself as having the qualities that I thought good leaders needed- assertiveness, an outgoing personality, and dominance. I came to learn that a leader does not need to encompass these traits. I learned that a leader is so much more than being an assertive person. In Introduction to Leadership, Northouse explained different aspects of leadership:
“Leadership is a Trait” – A trait is a distinguishing quality of an individual, which is oftentimes inherited. Defining leadership as a trait means each person has certain qualities that influence the way they lead (Northouse). Some are outgoing and sociable; some are introverted and assertive. Everyone is born with a wide array of unique traits that help them lead and work with others.
“Leadership is an Ability” – A person who has the ability to lead is capable of being a leader (Northouse). Some people just have a natural born ability to lead and some gain the ability through hard work and practice.
“Leadership is a Skill” – Skilled leaders know the right means and methods for carrying out their responsibilities and accomplishing tasks (Northouse). They are competent and knowledgeable and know what they need to do and how they need to do it (Northouse). Skills are things that people can learn and grow and improve on.
“Leadership is a Behavior” – This means that it is what leaders to when they are in a leadership role. Behavior is concerned with how leaders act and react when dealing with people, when facing a conflict or a crisis, and when things do not go their intended way.
“Leadership is a Relationship” – From this perspective, leadership is centered on the communication between leaders and followers rather than the qualities of a leader (Northouse). This approach emphasizes that leadership is not a linear, one-way event, but rather an interactive, collaborative one (Northouse). Mutuality is stressed with this approach because it emphasizes the need for a leader and their followers to work towards a common purpose and a common good.
“Leadership is an Influence Process” – This perspective means that it is not a trait or an ability that resides in a leader, but rather an interactive event that takes place between a leader and the followers (Northouse). Leaders directly affect followers. That is why it is important for leaders to be good role models and a good influence to their followers.
These things presented by Northouse are approaches to understanding leadership. They can be combined though to make the most ideal and optimal leader. Leadership should be components of all those aspects. If someone keeps all of these things in mind when being a leader, they will be very effective. Use your traits to your benefit, strengthen your abilities and recognize your weaknesses, constantly be growing and improving your skills, remember that there are people who look up to you and are watching your actions. Also, knowing that a leader is so much more than just a dominant, assertive person, makes me feel a lot more confident in my leadership abilities. I now know that I do not have to born with leadership skills, they can be taught, learned, and practiced over time.
Volunteerism
I have always had a big passion for volunteering and community service, but did not realize until this class the incredible amounts of different things that go into this. I really began to think about why I do service and what impact I and the work I am doing has on people. Davis tried to give reasons for why people serve, whether that may seem good or bad to some:
1. because we love God. Some will say it is because since the grace of God has temporarily given me more than He has given you, I will choose to help and serve you (Davis). This reason comes from the idea that we are all children of God and are all in need (Davis).
2. simply because we love others (Davis).
3. A slightly more cynical reason is because we identify with others (Davis). “I choose to serve you because I see your suffering, I can’t help but imagine myself suffering, and I don’t want to suffer, so by alleviating your suffering, I take care of myself” (Davis).
4. to win the praise of others (Davis). If someone else sees me doing good deeds and helping others, then they will think better of me. This reason seems very wrong to me, but I am positive that deep down, many volunteers, including myself, have enjoyed serving for this reason. It is a hard one to admit, but it does tend to make us feel better about ourselves when others see us helping others.
5. ...because frankly, we suck. Davis explained this more, “By serving I acknowledge my consciousness of my sinful nature and mitigate it somewhat. I suck, please let me serve you and perhaps I will suck a little less. This reading helped me to dig deep and ask myself why I do community service. A lot of mine is driven by faith and a genuine love of people. I love to see other people happy and I love giving my time and resources to try to make someone else’s life better.
I have learned that there are many different outcomes of community service. First, we must make sure that the service that we are providing is actually needed by the community. The project would be literally useless if the community had no need, or already had, what we were doing for them. We must then make sure that the project will be sustainable. If we were to install a well, but did not teach the people how to use it, then the well would be useless. Oftentimes, we do something but do not show the people how to keep it going and how to fix it if something goes wrong. Another huge part of community service, especially international, is that we must know and understand the community that we are working with. We must know their language, what they wear, how they live, what they find offensive, the things they eat, all of these things, so that we can better serve the community. These are just a few of the things that we must ensure we do to make sure we leave a community better than we left it and are making sure that we are not doing more harm than good.
Citizenship
Block defined citizenship as “our capacity to create for ourselves what we had sought from our leaders.” We have created a learned dependency on leaders and people in control, that many are not sure if we wo
Virginia Tech is a college that prides themselves in community service. Our motto is “Ut Prosim” meaning “that I may serve.” I feel like the university has done a great job with implementing the motto throughout campus. There are many service sororities and fraternities, the annual Big Event in April where students go out into the community to do community service, there are numerous clubs and organizations focused on community service work, and of course, the SERVE living learning community. I definitely think that Virginia Tech gives us opportunities to become active citizens on campus. The school is largely based on research whether that be medical, science, social, etc. Someone could do their research on social and community issues and projects that relate to community service. Through VT Engage, there are opportunities to go to a food bank every week and participate in regular community service projects. I do believe, though, that there should be more opportunities for active citizenship. Students participate in many different kinds of community service through various organizations, but from my experience, I feel like they still are not getting into the "why" part. Many do it as a resume builder and because it "looks good" and to fill a requirement but do not know why they are doing it and the impact they could be having. I want people do see community service as a real, life-changing experience. We could perhaps serve free coffee to those walking across the drill field to class, or help rake leaves on campus, and make these acts seem fun and inviting. These are little things that could help spark people's interests to get involved in serving others. I do not just want to serve those in need, I want to serve those on campus too.
My Active Citizen Continuum
I believe that my placement along the continuum changes from issue to issue. The biggest example is at my church. I started as a member of the church. I went to services on Sundays and that was it. After a while, I began to want serve within my church, but was too scared or did not know how to. I did not do anything about it for a while. I would consider myself a member at this point. Someone randomly asked me one day to help serve in the tech crew and I immediately said yes. This is where the volunteer stage started. I was serving to serve and not really thinking about why I was doing it or how big my role was. Now I believe that I have reached the conscientious citizen stage because I am understanding and wanting to learn more about the technology and why certain things work the way they do. I became a critical part of the services and went from just working the high school services to doing the Sunday services too. I am not to the active citizen stage yet because it has not become a part of my life. I can keep working my way up to become a higher leader and learn more about the system.
Next semester I plan on working with the Feeding America food bank. I believe I am currently in the conscientious citizen stage. A long time ago, I served in a Feeding America at my home. I did this out of a requirement and need to receive hours. This was the member stage. I later became a volunteer when I sought out more projects around food insecurity. I realized that this was one of my passions so I began doing more with it. After going to Feeding America a few weeks ago, I am in the conscientious citizen stage. I see more of the why behind food insecurity projects. I want to have a greater impact on my community. I understand more of why the need exists and want to continually help to resolve that need.
Montrose, A. (2012, November 15). Active Citizenship. Retrieved December 05, 2016, from https://whowillyoubegsu.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/active-citizenship/
Tyrrell, C. (2016, February 1). The Active Citizenship Continuum. Retrieved December 5, 2016, from https://prezi.com/ow_sddmus9kg/the-active-citizen-continuum/