Publicado el 08-06-2012
A Wonderful Initiative
by Former Justice
Sandra Day O’Connor
Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who retired some years back, was on a national TV program this Sunday, August 5th, where she spoke about iCivics.org.
In 2009, Mrs. O’Connor founded iCivics impressed by the lack of civic education of American youth. As she explained during the interview, half the states in the Union do not include civics in the public schools curricula, resulting in that the majority of Americans do not have basic instruction about this subject. She noted that any foreigner who studies to take the citizenship exam will know more about the nation’s governance than the majority of those born here, and that a third of the country’s adults can not identify the three branches of the federal government.
Justice O’Connor also mentioned that she realizes that to strengthen democracy, the new generations must be taught to understand and respect our system of governance. With that in mind she founded this website that offers free and innovative educational materials. There are special programs for teachers who might want to use them in their classrooms. It can be said that iCivics offers the most comprehensive curricula on civics and it is absolutely free. Furthermore, considering that many young people like computer games, iCivics has produced 16 educational video games that are also available free on the website.
If the schools do not offer civics lessons to the students, parents can go to www.iCivics.org and look up the games so that their children might start studying such an important subject that will help them become good citizens of this great nation.
iCivics has a board of directors and leadership team formed by state supreme court justices, secretaries of state, and educational leaders, as well as a network of volunteers who work for the program in different states. One can find the whole list on the website.
Justice O’Connor certainly should be commended for this great initiative that will surely help many children and youths that want to know more about the democratic way of government of the United States of America.
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