Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham promotes the importance of civics

PINELLAS PARK — Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham stood before a classroom of wide-eyed seventh-graders at Morgan E. Fitzgerald Middle School last week and asked them: "What is civics?"

Six hands flew in the air.

"Civics is abiding by the rules," said one student.

"Doing something good for our country," said another.

"Knowing about American history and our government," said a third.

"The reason why I'm asking these questions is because you and other students in Pinellas County are about to learn a lot more about civics," Graham said.

Morgan Fitzgerald is one of 14 middle schools piloting a yearlong civics course for seventh-graders, a new curriculum that will be fully implemented by 2012 in all the district's 20 middle schools. It focuses on the foundations of American government, citizenship duties and democratic rights.

Building active and informed citizens is the goal.

"There has been a significant decline in the amount of civics taught in the curriculum over the past 40 years," Graham said in a news conference after his class visit. "We hope this will be a reversal of the amount of civics taught."

The civics class will replace a current seventh-grade world geography class. Those lessons will be absorbed into the curriculum of other social studies courses, such as an ancient civilizations class for sixth-graders.

Fifteen Pinellas County teachers from 14 schools were trained for a week in the new civics curriculum last summer. By next year, at least one teacher from each middle school will teach the course and be able to train colleagues.

Seventh-grade civics teacher Jessica Webb, whose class Graham visited, said the course is much more hands-on and discussion-based than a geography course.

"It's not just about voting," she said. "There's a lot of things they can still do on a small level like writing letters or going to city hall meetings. This will give them an idea of what they can do to be a part of changing their communities."

This school year, her classes wrote letters to the School Board on their ideas for reducing dropout rates. They also wrote and videotaped their own public service announcements on recycling, drunken driving and drug abuse.

Pinellas County schools partnered with the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship to strengthen its social studies courses.

District social studies teachers will be trained through a grant with the citizenship center, which is a partnership between the Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government and the Bob Graham Center for Public Service.

Graham spoke to the students in Webb's class about serving on the Senate Education Committee, where he first noticed gaps in civics education in American schools.

He told students that learning about civics will help them become engaged citizens.

"You are the future of our country, and it is important that you understand what it means to be a citizen in America," he told the seventh-graders. "My hope is that civics education puts more emphasis on citizens getting directly involved in their community."

Tania Karas can be reached at tkaras@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8707.