By Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 21, 2006; A06
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."
Sam Chaltain, coordinator of the First Amendment Schools project, said many people associate those rights only with controversy.
"We have a very overdeveloped sense of rights and a very underdeveloped sense of responsibilities," he said.
The project seeks to create opportunities and lessons for students to get real-life experience at practicing freedom of press, speech, religion, assembly and petition. Students can write constitutions, publish newspapers, elect student governments, plan assemblies, petition for change and participate in community activities.
John Jarvis, 17, a senior at Kennebunk High School in Kennebunk, Maine, was one of two student voting members of a committee that hired a new social studies teacher last year.
Pooja Malhotra, 10, a fifth-grader at Nursery Road, edited this year's student newspaper, which she said was done entirely by students. Her classmate Will Bowman, 10, signed the school constitution, which promises to "establish fairness." That's important, he said, because it "means that you have certain laws and rules that have to apply to everyone."
The idea is simple, Chaltain said: Allow students to feel more involved in their daily lives at school, and they will be more enthusiastic about being there.
There can also be academic benefits, educators say.
"I think schools go about doing things the wrong way," Kennebunk Principal Nelson Beaudoin said. "They try to do things to kids instead of giving kids an opportunity to fully participate in what happens to them."
When Beaudoin became principal, 26 percent of the students said they were enthusiastic about school. In the past year, the third year in the project, it jumped to 76 percent. And, he said, the number of students who graduate with honors has tripled.
"Being able to have a greater say in what goes on in our school makes students definitely take more pride in their work," said Jarvis, the senior. "They don't feel like they are being held here against their will."
And in an age in which the watchword in education is "assessment," these schools are developing methods to determine how well students are doing on traits that might seem difficult to quantify, such as leadership and self-reliance.
"When we talk about ownership or we talk about community, that can be pretty vague, and people can have a variety of different interpretations," said Kim Carter, director of Monadnock Community Connections School in Keene, N.H., who has developed rubrics to assess progress in such areas as "dealing with others" and "group values."
Ultimately, students and educators say, adults shouldn't expect young people to know how to be good citizens if they never get practice.
"The more trust you give the students and the more opportunities to speak our mind, then you can expect that more of us will become better citizens," said Christine Pepin, 15, a sophomore at Kennebunk.
