Blog Post 1 - Civics and Citizenship (Learning about Democracy)

With the introduction of the Australian Curriculum, Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) has become a key learning area for all young Australians alongside English, Maths and Science. The goal of HASS education is for “students to contribute to Australia’s ideas of a cohesive society, sustainable environment, productive economy and stable democracy (ACARA, 2015).”

In Year 5, HASS comprises four sub-strands: History, Geography, Economics and Business and Civics and Citizenship. It is Civics and Citizenship Education (CCE) that we are starting to look at.

CCE is not just teaching students how Australian politics work and Heggart, Arvanitakis and Matthews describe how students should become more than just voters (2018). Through CCE, students will explore the values and practices that are relevant for 21^st century life and where they fit in (Gordon and Tudball, 2017). To do this, we need to develop students’ democratic understanding which can be built through discussions while respecting the opinions of others (Maurissen, Claes and Barber, 2017).

We will be creating our own classroom parliament. This will involve an election and roles for elected students. As a parliament, students will have the opportunity to make some decisions about the classroom such as the layout of desks and what activity to do for daily PE. However, to make these decisions, the elected students will need to take a vote. There will be two major parties and some independents that could sway the votes. Each week will be a new election so that everyone gets an opportunity.

However, before we will be able to do this, students will first need to learn about democracy and how the Australian democratic system works. We will start by incorporating some English to discover the meaning of the word ‘democracy’ and investigate its origin. As a class we will watch the video below with some facts about Australian democracy.

Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, (n.d.).

Students will go to the Parliamentary Education Office (PEO) website and play the ‘Federal, State and Local’ and ‘Pass the Bill’ games. (https://www.peo.gov.au/learning/kidsview.html)

These games will help students to learn about the different levels of government and how the Australian parliament works.

PEO, 2018.

PEO, 2018.

Tudball and Brett (2014) describe CCE as being integral to whole-school culture as it empowers young people and helps them gain valuable knowledge and skills. As a school, we want all students to become active and informed members of society, so we have a few programs in place to give students opportunities to be part of a democratic process. We have elected school captains, sports captains and a student representative council.

As parents and carers, you can help as well. When an election is coming up, you can discuss what issues might affect your voting. You can show them any voting information such as an example ballot so they can see what is involved in the voting process. You can help students be knowledgeable about local, state and national issues. If students are aware about issues, particularly local ones, they may want to do something about it.

Australian Curriculum Links

HASS

English

References

Australian Curriculum Assessment & Reporting Authority, (2015). Australian Curriculum. Retrieved from: http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/

Gilbert, R., & Hoepper, B. (2017). Teaching humanities & social sciences: history, geography, economics and citizenship in the Australian curriculum(6^th ed.). South Melbourne: Vic. Cengage Learning.

Heggart, K., Arvanitakis, J., & Matthews, I. (2018). Civics and citizenship education: what have we learned and what does it mean for the future of Australian democracy? Education, Citizenship and Social Justice. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1177/1746197918763459

Maurissen, L., Claes, E., & Barber, C. (2017). Deliberation in citizenship education: how the school context contributes to the development of an open classroom climate. Social Psychology of Education. DOI: 10.1007/s11218-018-9449-7.

Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House. (n.d.). 10 Fast facts about our Australian democracy. Retrieved from: https://www.moadoph.gov.au

Parliamentary Education Office. (2018). Kidsview. Retrieved from: https://www.peo.gov.au

Tudball, L., & Brett, P. (2014). What matters and what’s next for civics and citizenship education in Australia? Ethos, 22, 35-43.