#3. Understand their values and Moral beliefs...

3. Understand their values and moral beliefs and how and why they may differ from those of others. Be able to accept and address criticisms of his/her values and beliefs.
Part of your growth and frame of reference is a development of values and moral beliefs.
VALUE: ...to consider with respect to worth, excellence, usefulness, or importance. What do you value within your makup? What makes you have worth? If your interest is academics, do you "value" a "A" grade, or is a "C" acceptable. The higher your value, the harder you work towards that goal. That is why grades are representative of your efforts. An employer likes to see those kind of values, because it indicates you will be a hard worker, independent, organized, loyal, etc. College recruiters always say that high school grades are the best indicator of success in college. Establishing goals early in life and striving to acheive them makes you work and find out how to acheive things that you may never thought you could.

MORAL BELIEFS: Of or concerned with the principles of right and wrong in conduct and character: teaching of conduct standards of good behavior; conforming to the rules of right conduct: sexually virtuous: judged by one's conscience to be ethical or approved: capable of distinguishing between right and wrong.

Moral beliefs are taught by parents, the village, the government, church, and the friends developed over years. The main portion of moral beliefs is knowing the difference between right and wrong AND ACTING IN THE CORRECT MANNER. Politically speaking, do you vote for a person of proven good character, or someone of lesser character. The church provides morals and ethics that are examples of proper behavior.
Your values and beliefs will not always be the same as others. Do you know why you have your values and beliefs? Can you justify your beliefs in the face of criticism in a "debate" about questioning those beliefs and having people try to change your position? Can you accept others position with their values without making enemies? Remember, if you are entitled to your values/beliefs, so is everyone else . This is an area of political discourse that gets out of hand. Several religious entities become overzealous about their views and attempt to "convert" those that they evangalize. They think if the potential convert does not agree with their position they will go to hell. If you think this is not a big thing, rethink the Iraq war situation. The Muslims think Christians are not a respectful religion because they do not do church-like things everyday like the Muslims do. Christians only go to church once a week. Look at World History, most of the wars through-out history have to do with "religion".

#2

An educated person should...
#2. Understand and evaluate their own and other's decisions.
"Understand and evaluate..." To understand beliefs and values that you accept in your life, you call on reserves first. An example would be: Your frame of reference. This has been discussed in earlier blog messages. In your "frame of reference", you have amassed a tremendous amount of "education", that you call on everyday. It depends upon how diligent you have been in your life to accumulate a good "stockpile", of information. It is good information if you have received it, hashed and rehashed it, and accepted it into your existence as a belief or value that you stand behind. For instance, if your parents were/are conservatives, you have been privy to their discussions and beliefs and have accepted many into your "frame". To you, that becomes the way you look at current happenings and reports. After many challenges to those beliefs, you feel comfortable with some and uncomfortable with others. This is now starting into the "evaluate" portion. You need to see how strongly you believe in those comfortable ones, what makes you comfortable, and why you feel uncomfortable with the ones you can't believe in--and why. You are now starting to weigh what you can support and what is needed for that support and why you can't support an item. One of the most polarizing issues is abortion. If your religious beliefs feel that the mother should carry the fetus full term--NO MATTER WHAT, then that is what you would choose. However, if you believe that the mother's rights to free choice, supercedes the rights of the fetus, then you will desire a mother the choice to have an abortion or not.
New evidence:
Once you have established your value system, you then need to keep current on all the latest technological,current events, local, national and worldwide, Congressional events, your federal political subdivisions (House of Representatives) and Senators for your state , State government members and city government representatives. You should be able to read about an event, enter or not enter it into your frame of reference and be able to stand up and voice an opinion on that event. You also need to keep current on world events and be able to support or not support what is going on and be able to get involvled in discussion about the way you feel about what is going on. How does this effect you? The George W. Bush Presidency made so many "errors" that the public rose up and elected a Barak Obama as President. The people were so insensed that they took their "well-formulated opinions" and put them into action by electing a new political party to the Presidency with new ideas, similar to their own. Those original opinions were ideas that people saw didn't work, they accepted new ideas to alter their "frame of reference" and put that new altered opinion into action.

What should an Educated Citizen Be Able to do? #1

An educated person should be able to do the following:
1. Be able to make conscious, informed decisions in the public sphere and in their private lives and be able to explain their reasons for the decisions.

Be able to make conscious, informed decisons...
A person needs to keep an open enough mind to hear all sides of an issue, make a decision based on his/her frame of reference, plus new evidence that your research has uncovered, and be able to formulate a decision backed up with well-thought out reasoning for your belief.

...in the public sphere...
A person needs to be comfortable enough with that decision to discuss his/her belief so when "threatened" by outside critical opinions, that decision will stand the test of time. That would include being able to talk in public groups, such as a city council meeting, or a planning and zoning meeting. It would be up to you to convince the public entities that you are dealing with that your point of view has: Sound reasoning, the latest available data...that is researchable, and you do it in such a way that people want to be on your side...not against you. When you are talking in the public sphere, you are trying to convince someone to your way of thinking about an issue.

...in their private lives...
Sometimes, there are private entities that need the benefit of your "research", that you need to bring on your side, or just explain, your point of view. All of the above would apply.

...and be able to explain their reasons for the decisions.
When a person "cries Wolf" too many times, people do not listen after being burned. If you tell data in a conversation/debate/ whatever, that is unsubstantiated, people will listen until they find out that it is unsubstantiated. After that, it will take many attempts to gain their "trust" in anything that you say. When you make a statement based on a newspaper/magazine, make sure you remember the date, issue, etc., so people can go back to it and look it up in total. They are entrenched in their own opinion/belief and it will take substantial evidence for them to come to your way of thinking. If you cannot deliver a date of the article...etc....it is the same as being without value.

What should an Educated Citizen Be Able to do?

An educated person should:

1. Be able to make conscious, informed decisions in the public sphere and in their private lives and be able to explain their reasons for the decisions.

2. Understand and evaluate their own and other''s decisions.

3. Understand their values and moral beliefs and how and why they may differ from those of others. Be able to accept and address criticisms of his/her values and beliefs.

4. Be able and willing to regularly engage in questioning the forces, institutions, and belief systems that shaped not only his or her own values and beliefs, but those of teachers and classmates, the university and larger community as well.

5. Be able to think for himself/herself.

6. Be able to engage in discussions about political and economic issues that affect his or her community.

7. Be able to lead.

8. Be open-minded.

9. Be able to communicate and listen effectively.

10. Be able to conceptualize a problem and solve it.

11. Be able to consider ethical issues thoughtfully.

12. Understand that learning is a continuous lifelong process.

13. Be able to think critically, creatively, and independently.

14. Be flexible in order to adapt to changing economic and social conditions, new workforce needs, and the demands of a multicultural society.

15. Be able to explain and use the ideas and principles underlying the major areas of modern knowledge.

16. Be a good citizen based on their knowledge of democracy.

The above items were taken from "Summary of Comments Made on the Educated Citizen List Service, Fall 2003" Some of those items were taken from the California Education Code 66050 and 66070, also from an article in September/October issue of Change: "Teaching students to think."

I will continue the Blog going through each of the above trying to give examples for easier understanding.

Frame of Reference II

In the last blog, it was explained how a persons "frame of reference" was that a person is the sum total of all experiences, mistakes, successes, etc. How does that effect an educated citizen? Example: If you lived in the south all your life, you call the War between the States, just that, but if you are from the North, you call it The Civil War. Even today people are very touchy about where you are from. As a southerner, you have been raised with a certain value and ethic system, that sometimes taints your viewpoint towards people of the North. Ditto for Northern raised people. Your frame of reference helps make you decisions. Similarily, if your parents have always been Republican, because you have been raised in their house, you are probably Republican when you acheive voting age. Similarily for Democrats, etc. The way you look at things!!
Other socially oriented frame of reference "decisions": People define truth for themselves and will rationalize away any failures. Everyone puts a spin on the truth. A perfect example: "Don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness." You have learned that you can get away with things if you don't ask for permission and if you get caught, ask for forgiveness. "Reality is not as important as perception? What is true is not as important as what people believe to be true." A perfect example: When George W. Bush ran for his second election as President. Europe, the remainder of the world and all thinking Americans could not even phathom him being elected again--but he was elected to a second term. Why? 1) He was a sitting president at a wartime. 2) the average voter really did not follow current events. After the election, newscaster Carolyn Simpson, went around the U.S. on behalf of a major TV network, talked with people and students. The result is better stated in one sentence, "People thought Heusin was still in power in Iraq" In other words, people were too busy, making money, having fun, NOT DOING THEIR CITIZENSHIP DUE DILIGENCE to keep up with current events or reading about their president to make an intelligent decision in the polls.

Frame of reference I

Frame of Reference. A term that is used all the time in conversations. What does it mean? Earlier I mentioned this phrase and explained that it is the total sum of all that you have retained in your mind. That is too small an explanation. So I will expand upon it.
Frame of reference includes all that you experience, whether you physically experience it, read about it, learn from failure about it, learn from success about it, travel, experimentation, everything that goes into your brain.
Why does an educated citizen need to know about frame of reference?
First, you need to know what is in your frame of reference. What you have retained within your experiencial level. The more experiences you accumulate, the wider your frame of reference. That is why people that are only readers and not "doers" are not as qualified in what they are doing. A person that ratchets a bolt and nut together "feels" when to stop, a person that only reads about it doesn't know about the "feel". You need to know what you need to "work" on to make your frame of reference more rounded within your "world". The word compentency comes into play here. People who remain curious until they die are always interested in widening their "frame of reference". A person that is an educated citizen is always searching to benefit the country, government, community, thus will listen to all available sides of a controversary before making a stand. More on the next blog.

Where can you find those items you need to be a citizen?

My last blog discussed morals and ethics needed to be a good citizen. There is a two volume set of books by William J. Bennett. The Book of Virtues and The Moral Compass. These books are not the definitive books on morals and ethics only the books that help explain them so everyone can understand them. They came out in 1995 and 1996, so you should be able to find them in any bookstore or book sales by non-profit agencies.
As I said, they are a very easy read. He explains what he is going to discuss then gives very good examples. He breaks it down in the various areas of society, so you can go to that area and it discusses those standards that are applicable.
In the area within The Moral Compass, chapter six, "Citizenship and Leadership", he starts out by explaining that," we are all members of groups, clubs, churches, school organizations, civic organizations and political parties in order to better ourselves and the condition of others."
"The success of any organization depends on the character of its citizens. Good citizens
are those who know and live up to their duties by exercising virtues such as responsibility,
loyalty, self-discipline, work and friendship."
He also reminds us of other virtues required to hold such positions as team captain, club president, state representative, member of a student council, vestry, or board of directors. Such virtues are: "compassion, courage, perseverance, wisdom and sometimes faith." Leaders are ultimately judged in terms of how well they serve their followers and by the examples they set..... They lead not just by command, but by the force of their good character. Good leaders are also good followers. They know how to help shoulder a load and share hardships. Good leaders are also grateful for the gifts and opportunities given and work hard to preserve and improve them. Gratitude counts, "especially among a people blessed with an inheritance of political freedom and material wealth unmatched in the history of mankind."
Have you ever had a leader that is not cheerful? We all have. Cheerfulness is also a necessity in a good leader.
"They all knew him! He was the man that cannot steer, that cannot splice, that dodges the
work on dark nights, that, aloft, holds on frantically with both arms and legs and swears at
the wind, the sleet, the darkness; the man who curses the sea while others work. The man
who is the last out and the first in when all hands are called. The man who can't do most
things and won't do the rest. The pet of philanthropists and self-seeking landlubbers. The
sympathetic and deserving creature that knows all about his rights, but knows nothing of
courage, of endurance, and of the unexpressed faith, of the unspoken loyalty that knits
together a ship's company." Joseph Conrad
Whiners, grumblers and complainers are not simply unattractive, they are symptoms of selfishness. And an overriding concern with the "self" is not the business of citizenship.
You sometimes wonder what kind of citizens our leaders are. Many are only out for themselves, fortunately for us we also have others who are out for the common good.