09.01.2007 How to bring up a citizen

In September, 2006, I visited the capital of Switzerland to take part in a training on civic consciousness supported by the Council of Europe and European Commission, which cooperate in the field of developing youth initiatives and informal junior education. Its work involves a huge number of organizations throughout Europe. Youth faces the same problems as adults, namely the realization of human rights values, civil activity, intercultural dialogue and cooperation, development of youth policies and respect towards cultural diversity. European civic consciousness means for me a commitment to the ideals and values of Europe, which were generated in the long history of European thought. The basis of this article is a speech made by a professor of Zurich university Rolf Gollob.
Learning civic consciousness is a multi-level and diverse process which includes a spectrum of activity ranging from classical lectures and trainings to educative video-games. The leading role here is played by NGO which have a practical experience in human rights defense and work in the field of education.
Civic consciousness is characteristic of a citizen who is resident of a state. The state defends him and provides for him a number of rights and obligations. A citizen must possess a civic consciousness. In modern world of rapid change and information boom society is in a sore need of an active, well informed and responsible citizen. Now it is widely acknowledged that education plays a crucial part in creating such citizens. Some people can still acquire certain skills and practices of a democratic civic behavior in family, but such education is becoming more and more insufficient for the present conditions.
Democratic civil education (DCE) must be a characteristic feature of both formal and informal education. It is an acute problem for Russia, because conservative Soviet education (particularly civil education) was not only isolationist, but misanthropic. The pedagogocentrism still thrives with its monologue lecture form, as the only way of teaching, which lower the proficiency of education. It mutilates children making their attitude towards life passive and their worldview narrow and dull. The content of education is also “unstuck in time”. This and many other factors account for professional disability of modern Russian teachers, dullness of students’ lives and the overall atmosphere of passiveness and stagnation.
The idea of DCE in Europe is not new. It has been part of civil education since long ago. It taught the meaning of such concepts as polity, constitution and human rights. But the lecture is not enough for building up a civic consciousness. Most people limit their civic consciousness to the knowledge of who is their boss, what they shall not do and also that they must vote. In the face of new challenges a new civic consciousness, based on new pedagogical methods should be introduced. First let’s dwell on these challenges.
Ethnic conflicts and nationalism pose serious problems, which has been generally acknowledged by the world community. Global threat of terrorism deprives people of security and undermines democracy. Developing new technologies are fraught with new potential threats of mass human rights violation, manipulation of consciousness and the use of high-tech for criminal purposes. Social solitude and escapism are also becoming serious challenges in modern society.
Ecological problems are being widely discussed today. The Earth’s resources are diminishing. Ecological consciousness and consumer society are difficult to combine though some countries (those in Europe, for instance) show their solicitous attitude towards nature. Still the problems of atomic energy, utilization of wastes, remain, as well as that of oil extraction.
Migration, both natural and forced, as a result of hostilities, also poses a threat to democracy. It is complicated by the demands for a new equality, which have gender, economic, political, religious aspects, aspects relating to the person’s sexual preferences, special needs etc. Today we also see the growing distrust of traditional institutes, governmental forms and political leaders.
It is necessary today, in the face of these challenges, first of all, to reassume the value of human life as a chief basis of society. Human society means evolution in pursuit of more freedom. To reflect reality in a human way you must think it. Thinking means creating the new – creating the principles of its construction, changing reality as it is. “To do means to create conditions for free decision,” – says Russian philosopher A.F. Losev. To have a plan means to be free. Today in our country we have no plan of development whether in cultural, political, economical or social spheres. Without these any progress within a society is void, for we literally don’t know which way to go. Hence the stagnation of our life. We depend heavily on fortuity, therefore we became slaves. We need thoughts, ideas, truths, which could become the guiding stars for the society. Only philosophers can provide us with these.
Who is philosopher? It is a person who argues the obvious and creates new reality. Philosophy means constant growth of information and, therefore, war against entropy. It expires, when dogmatism with its declarative truths and idolatry takes the air. The popularity of philosophy is a mark of political freedom and civic consciousness in a society. Authoritarianism and totalitarianism persecute philosophers, deeming their business harmful and subversive. Democracy must favor them. Human is an inertial system and it is philosophy which makes its thought work and generates its vital capacity. “Cogito ergo sum”.
Dialectics affirms general interdependence of phenomena and its development through contradictions. It is the basis of philosophical thought since the times of Socrates and Plato. So true and fruitful education must be dialectic and mobile. It cannot ignore contradictions of life and it must embrace them in the fullest possible measure. Only such education can be of existential importance for people. Unfortunately, conservative education gives a hard-stuck orientation towards the existing political, social and cultural isolation while global and regional interference goes on.
In the face of modern challenges the world needs citizens who are not only informed, but also active, able to participate in the life of their community, their country and their planet, who can take responsibility for what’s happening there and contribute to the change of reality, based on humanistic values.
New form of citizenship calls for new knowledge. A traditional model of education is simply insufficient to bring up an active, informed and responsible citizen. As a consequence of its conservatism we see that students can’t investigate or discuss controversial social and political problems – they seem to lose interest in politics and social life. Modern civic study imply either studying the domineering cultures of Russia and bringing up the sense of national pride, or the “military-patriotic” education with overt or covert preaching of chauvinism, xenophobia and slavish subjection to the state.
It is a mistake to separate education from the student’s everyday life. It should be bound to the local and communal problems they are facing with so that they could learn in practice rather than in theory what they are told and taught. The students must in the first place learn to take decisions, which implies education based on current events, activities and problems. The spheres of formal and informal education in this dimension shall concur, if not converge. In Karelia we have an experience of such convergence – “Yuri Linnik’s Popular University”. Y. Linnik is a qualified Karelian philosopher, skilled teacher and lecturer, with an original educative program, which appeals primarily to adults and those of the youth who are willing to start participating in the public life of their country.
Civil society therefore must put the following aims before its citizen: to realize his/her rights and obligations, be informed about social and political life home and abroad, be interested in the welfare of his and other nations. To bring these aims to one’s consciousness is actually what DCE stands for.

Maxim Efimov
Leader of Youth Human Rights Group, Karelia.