By Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

Speech to the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools

April 17, 2006

Speech to the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools
ITEM DETAILS
Type: Speech
Location: The Campaign for Civic Mission of Schools

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Transcript

(Automatically generated)

Host
So join me in welcoming the honorable Sandra Day O'Connor.

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Come on. No, no. No.

I agreed to be part of this Voluntary Group, as a part of the Advisory Council for this effort, because of my absolute conviction that we have to educate all of our young people on how democracies function. What do we mean when we talk about rule of law? How do citizens have the capacity? And do they have a duty to protect? The pay and how to do it? If we don't do this, it won't take more than three or four years before we will have created such a gap in the capacity and willingness of our citizens to be good citizens, that our country will take a major decline. There is no question that we have to do precisely the activity that this effort is all about. We have to teach every succeeding generation of young people what it is ourselves. system of government consists of our works, how they can be part of it, and why they should be part of it.

Now, it isn't easy to do this. My co-honorary chair here, Governor Romer, runs about the second largest school district in the country. And he knows exactly what the problems are. But you see, this knowledge about how we function in this country isn't handed down through the gene pool. Every generation has to learn it. And we who are older have to be responsible for teaching. I mean, it's that simple. But you have to teach it in ways that will engage the students. We have maybe a more sophisticated student group and in my day, where I can set my class and be told something And presumably learned something about going ahead and doing it these days with all the TV and other exposures that children have. We have to be a little better at how we educate and we have to get students actually involved in student government in all things connected with the three branches of government. There's a program I love dealing with the judicial system called Teen Court, where teenagers students sit as prosecutors, defense counsel, jurors. Sentences in real life cases involving other teenagers charged with misdemeanor. This is, believe me, that experience is worth a lifetime to the students who participate. They're equally innovative ways to teach young people about the other responsibilities of government, the legislative part, the executive part. And that's what we have to do.

We have so many issues facing us today that really provide opportunities to engage students. Look at the issues concerning pop. Simple changes in immigration laws. We are a nation of immigrants and to see the number of demonstrators in the Hispanic world over the last couple of weeks in connection with that reinforces how that issue can engage high school students, maybe even grade school students in a very real way to talk about what our laws are now. What is it that you're concerned about as an, as an ex student? And how can you be involved in resolving it? And of course issues of wartime service are very much a presence in our country. And again, they can be a learning tool and a way to involve students in discussing and learning it.

And we are operating today in a different environment of the funding of public school education with the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act which quite appropriate. Lee expressed a concern about the fact that students were not being well enough trained in reading or in mathematics, and that this was creating a learning deficit in our country. Quite so. But maybe some of the reading better be about civics and government. You know, maybe we can integrate these things and not see a decline as a result of No Child Left Behind in these other essential elements of government, I suspect we can do that. And I'm very pleased to be part of it because I believe so strongly that that we must increase the level of knowledge of all our students about our system of government and how we as citizens can and must participate. Thank you.