California Cadet Corps Curriculum on Citizenship

1. California Cadet CorpsCurriculum on Citizenship “Make the World a Better Place: Improve Yourself!” C2/A: Improve Yourself

2. Agenda A1. Seven Citizenship Skills A2. Civic Awareness A3. Critical Thinking Skills A4. Understanding Limitations and Biases of News A5. Social Media A6. Travel the World to Understand A7. Seven Effective Habits of Highly Effective Teens A8. Citizen and Human Rights

3. Seven Citizenship skills A1. Identify the seven citizenship skills and why they’re important.

4. Seven Citizenship Skills OBJECTIVES 90% of Unit Cadets will know the steps they can take to become better citizens in their daily life, in their community, and in the world. Plan of Action 1. Identify the seven citizenship skills and why they’re important. Essential Question: Why are the seven citizenship skills important?

5. Citizenship “Citizenship” means: • the duties, rights, & privileges of being a citizen of a state or nation The CACC wants Cadets to be: Responsible, Law abiding, & Members in good standing in your community

6. Seven Good Citizenship Skills* • Cooperation • Patience • Fairness • Respect • Strength • Self-Improvement • Balance *The explanation of the above terms in the slides that follow are all from: Dictionaries, O. L. (2018, August 4). Retrieved from English: Oxford Living Dictionaries: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cooperation

7. 1: Cooperation Cooperation: the process of working together toward the same end/goal. AKA, Teamwork!

8. 2: Patience Patience: The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious. • Be patient and allow a system to work or a process to be completed Who can give an example of a time you’ve had to be patient with your fellow Cadets?

9. 3: Fairness Fairness: Impartial and just treatment or behavior without favoritism or discrimination. • Good citizens accept that fairness benefits you as much as it hurts you

10. 4: Respect Respect: A feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. • A significant citizenship skill! • It’s one of the Cadet Corps’ core values • Show others our respect by accepting that they are due as much respect as we are • even if they’re different from us or believe differently

11. 5: Strength Strength: The quality or state of being strong. • Inner strength can mean resiliency or ability to persevere in a difficult situation Example: Successfully making it through Survival Training • Strength of Character: • to stand up to peer pressure when your friends want you to do something you shouldn’t do

12. 6: Self-Improvement Self-Improvement: The improvement of one’s knowledge, status, or character by one’s own efforts. • Never stop working to improve yourself • Continual self-improvement tends to improve those around you

13. 7. Balance Balance: An even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady. • There is more than one side to every issue • Develop your ability to: • Come to agreement • Resolve differences

14. Seven Citizenship Skills • Important to your success • They make you a better team player: a better “citizen” • When working toward a common goal, everyone benefits!

15. Check on Learning In your own words, explain why developing the seven citizenship skills makes you a better person

16. Civic awareness A2. Name three ways a Cadet can be involved in his/her community

17. Seven Citizenship Skills OBJECTIVES 90% of Unit Cadets will know the steps they can take to become better citizens in their daily life, in their community, and in the world. Plan of Action 2. Name three ways a Cadet can be involved in his/her community. Essential Question: What are some ways you can be involved in your community?

18. Civic Awareness • It’s essential to establish strong connections in your community & the wider world • Ways to do be involved: • Help with/Participant in: • Food & clothing drives • Veteran appreciation events • Community clean-up days • History walks • Student • Neighborhood resident • Sports participant • Arts participant • Volunteer

19. Civic Awareness • Cadet Corps is all about civic awareness! • CACC encourages Cadets and your units to be involved • School • Community • Volunteer to help others

20. Check on Learning 1. Name at least three ways a Cadet and/or the unit can be involved in your community. • Practicum • As a unit, decide on at least one event you will plan to participate in during the school year. • Who will take the lead role in coordinating unit participation? • Who will contact the event organizer?

21. Critical thinking skills A2. Name three ways a Cadet can be involved in his/her community

22. Critical Thinking Skills OBJECTIVES 90% of Unit Cadets will know the steps they can take to become better citizens in their daily life, in their community, and in the world. Plan of Action 3. Define critical thinking in your own words. Explain how questioning assumptions and analyzing the source of your information help you think critically. Essential Question: Why is it important to question assumptions and analyze sources of information?

23. Critical Thinking Skills Life is about your ability to evaluate the facts you gather (not about the facts you know) If you can think through & solve difficult problems You will be much better prepared for anything you’ll encounter in life

24. What is Critical Thinking? • Deliberate thinking • Thinking you put effort into “Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.”. – The Foundation for Critical Thinking (Scriven, 1987)

25. Critical Thinking Skills When we engage in critical thinking: • We ‘actively and skillfully conceptualize’ – we come up with thoughts about the topic • We ‘apply’ information – relate what you know to what you’re thinking about • We ‘analyze’ information – we examine the information methodically in detail • We ‘synthesize’ information – we combine information into a coherent whole • We ‘evaluate’ information – we assess the information as to its source, validity, truth, etc.

26. Critical Thinking Skills We apply critical thinking to information we gather from or generate by: • Observation – what we have seen • Experience – what we have done • Reflection – what we have thought • Reasoning – what we worked out through thinking something through • Communication – what we’ve read or been told

28. Critical Thinking Deliberately and systematically processing information in order to: • Make better decisions • Understand things better • Separate fact from fiction or assumption • Recognize biased information • Recognize fallacies in reasoning

29. Critical Thinking • Allows you to form your own opinions • Helps you make hard decisions • Allows you to develop different ideas and solutions to problems • Allows you to determine criteria to use for assessing situations • Helps you analyze and compare solutions • Helps you determine the best solution

30. Seven Ways to Think More Critically* • Ask Basic Questions • Question Basic Assumptions • Be Aware of Your Mental Processes • Try Reversing Things • Evaluate the Existing Evidence • Remember to Think for Yourself • Understand That No One Thinks Critically 100% of the Time *Frank, T. (2018). 7 Ways to Improve Your Critical Thinking Skills. Retrieved from CollegeInfoGeek: https://collegeinfogeek.com/improve-critical-thinking-skills/

31. 1. Ask Basic Questions • Continually go back to the basic questions you asked when you set out to solve the problem. • A few key basic question you can ask when approaching any problem: • What do I already know? • How do I know that? • What am I trying to prove, disprove, demonstrate, critique, etc.? • What am I overlooking?

32. 2. Question Basic Assumptions • Some of history’s greatest innovators questioned everyone’s assumptions • Isaac Newton • Albert Einstein • Critically evaluate your beliefs about what is • prudent, • appropriate, or • possible

33. 3. Be Aware of Your Mental Processes • Our brains use mental shortcuts—called heuristics—to explain what’s happening around us • To think critically, slow down your brain & don’t take mental shortcuts! • Be aware of: • your cognitive biases & personal preferences, and • how they influence your decisions & solutions

34. 4. Try Reversing Things • A great way to get “unstuck” on a hard problem Example: The “chicken and egg problem” is a classic example of this. At first, it seems obvious that the chicken had to come first. The chicken lays the egg, after all. But then you quickly realize that the chicken had to come from somewhere, and since chickens come from eggs, the egg must have come first. Or did it? • Even if it turns out the reverse isn’t true, it can move you on the path to find a solution

35. 5. Evaluate the Existing Evidence • It’s helpful to look at what has been done before • Don’t need to start from scratch • BUT! Evaluate this info critically • Ask: • Who gathered this evidence? • How did they gather it? • Why?

36. 6. Remember to Think for Yourself • Don’t get so bogged down in researching and reading that you forget to think for yourself • Don’t be overconfident but recognize thinking for yourself is essential in answering tough questions.

37. 7. Understand That No One Thinks Critically 100% of the Time • You don’t need to think critically about everything Use critical thinking for: • Making important decisions • Solving difficult problems

38. Practicum As a class, use critical thinking skills to work through the scenario below and see if you can come up with an answer. (There is no right or wrong answer.) “A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's laboratory to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?”

39. Check on Learning Define critical thinking in your own words. Why is it important to question assumptions and analyze sources of information?

40. Understanding limitations and biases of news A4. Name at least two ways to determine the truth of what’s reported in the news.

41. Understanding Limitations and Biases of News OBJECTIVES 90% of Unit Cadets will know the steps they can take to become better citizens in their daily life, in their community, and in the world. Plan of Action 4. Name at least two ways to determine the truth of what’s reported in the news. Essential Question: How can I get unbiased news reporting?

42. Understanding Limitations and Biases of News • A good citizen is responsible, fair, and balanced • Do NOT get caught up in: • the emotions of the news • how people around you are reacting to the news • Be concerned to get the truth of news/reports before you react!

43. Understanding Limitations and Biases of News • Social media has taken over as many people’s news source • Reported “news” is often what sells best (sensationalism): • Crime, sex, scandals • Bizarre or extremist opinions and behavior • Celebrity gossip • News media that’s intentionally biased toward one way of looking at things (political, social, racial – any biased reporting) is unfair to the public

44. Understanding Limitations and Biases of News • Where’s the best place to get news? • It can be difficult! • The Key: be aware of biased & sensationalist reporting • Access different sources: • T.V. channels • Newspapers • News magazines in-depth reporting • Online sites that report from different perspectives or that emphasize fact reporting over opinions

45. Understanding Limitations and Biases of News • Use critical thinking skills to assess what you’re hearing: • Consider the source • Analyze the facts & assumptions • Evaluate the evidence • THINK FOR YOURSELF

46. Understanding Limitations and Biases of News • Use critical thinking skills to assess what you’re hearing: • Consider the source • Analyze the facts & assumptions • Evaluate the evidence • THINK FOR YOURSELF

47. Practical Exercise • For one week: • Check the news from three sites every day • Start by selecting news sites you have heard are biased • Every day, go through all three sites • Select one topic or news event that all three have reports on and compare the reporting • What differences do the reports show? • Are the sites biased? • How can you tell? • How are they influencing their watchers/readers toward a point of view? • REMEMBER: Use critical thinking!

48. Social media A5. Give three examples of things social media accomplishes and three examples of problems with social media.

49. Social Media OBJECTIVES 90% of Unit Cadets will know the steps they can take to become better citizens in their daily life, in their community, and in the world. Plan of Action 5. Give three examples of things social media accomplishes and three examples of problems with social media. Essential Questions: In what ways can social media be positive? What are some of the negatives of social media I need to avoid?

50. Social Media