Citizenship is a way for students to get involved with communities, learn the policies and practices of being active in communities, develop social roles and norms around you.
In my experience, lots of my citizenship experience was helping out around our school community. There was tons of options for getting involved in the community in elementary school that you were forced to do as a class, versus high school it was more of an option. In elementary school we raked leaves in the community, shovel driveways, sorted food for the food bank, cleaned up garbage on the school yard. My teachers never really talked much of how to be an active citizen they just focused more on what we can do to help around communities.
At my High school (Riffel) we were the number one school that collected food for the food bank in Saskatchewan for years. Helping out around the community provides an act of kindness that can make someone’s day 10 times better. In high school we had to do 10 christian service hours and many students would just get their sheet signed by their neighbour or parent, which was ruining the purpose of it.
There are many ways that encompass being a good citizen like respecting the property of others, following rules and laws, respecting rights of others, being active and honest. My schools focused on community involvement and the morals of citizenship versus the political aspects.
Chandra's Blog 