Students Flex Rights to Understand Responsibility

Project Stresses Civics Through Petitions, Voting

Students at Fairview Elementary School in Modesto, Calif., thought the ravioli served at lunch tasted so yucky that they circulated petitions to get it off the menu -- and won.

Lesson learned: Kids sometimes do get to pick what they eat.

At Nursery Road Elementary School in Columbia, S.C., students asked for a longer recess. But Principal Mary Kennerly recalled that when she explained that the school day would have to be extended to meet state mandates, "the kids said, 'Never mind.' "

Lesson learned: Things that look simple aren't always so, and with rights come responsibilities.

A small but growing number of schools has begun to inculcate students in the fundamentals of democratic freedom by teaching and practicing the principles of the First Amendment.

Administrators and students say such education is imperative amid concern about a lack of adequate civic education in many U.S. schools and at a time when the publication of newspaper cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad has sparked riots abroad and a debate over free speech.

"We are trying to create real leadership skills these kids can carry with them into middle and high school and beyond," said Principal Rob Williams of Fairview, which is participating in the First Amendment Schools project of the Arlington-based First Amendment Center, a nationwide initiative to transform how schools teach civic education.

"We are trying to think differently and create a school with a public purpose and a civic mission," Williams said. "There's more to school than just preparing kids for tests."

A study last year of high school students by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation found that students lack knowledge and understanding about key aspects of the First Amendment; 75 percent incorrectly think that flag burning is illegal.

It isn't only young people who don't know what the First Amendment says. Students at Nursery Road Elementary were quick to point out that nobody at the school -- adults included -- could recite the five rights guaranteed by the First Amendment before the school joined the initiative.

Kennerly said the adults have learned a lot, too, including what to do with kids who decline to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Although state law requires schools to recite the pledge every day, Kennerly said she has learned that the Constitution allows students to express their freedom of speech by declining to say it.

"It's really helped us in understanding, especially living in the deep South, that freedom of speech isn't a negative thing," she said. "What we want our children to learn is to express their thoughts and ideas but to do it in a way that is respectful of other people."