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The article links this to the importance of civics education in strengthening American democracy amid threats like polarization, inequality, and the erosion of civil society institutions.",{"@graph":14,"@context":71},[15,34,54],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/healthcare/","Healthcare",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-power-of-active-citizenship/591596/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":48,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":49,"interactionStatistic":50},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/the-power-of-active-citizenship/591596.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"supergirl","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":51,"interactionType":52,"userInteractionCount":22},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":53},"ViewAction",{"@type":55,"mainEntity":56},"FAQPage",[57,63,67],{"name":58,"@type":59,"acceptedAnswer":60},"Why does the article describe students’ response as active citizenship?","Question",{"text":61,"@type":62},"It describes students organizing and lobbying for gun safety rather than accepting victimization, using civic rights to assemble, speak freely, and petition government for policy redress.","Answer",{"name":64,"@type":59,"acceptedAnswer":65},"What role does civics education play in the students’ activism?",{"text":66,"@type":62},"The article argues that civics instruction in Florida, restored in 2010 and taught at the high school, equipped students with the knowledge and skills to act effectively as citizens.",{"name":68,"@type":59,"acceptedAnswer":69},"How does the article connect school shooting activism to broader threats to democracy?",{"text":70,"@type":62},"It frames the events as happening amid global and U.S. challenges such as political polarization, economic inequality, dysfunction, declining civil society, and attacks on factual knowledge.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":73,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":75,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":77,"site_id":7},591596,1792080644,{"code":4,"msg":80,"data":81},"success",[82,86,90,94,99,104,108,113,118,121,125],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":83,"show_sort_weight":84,"slug":85},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":87,"show_sort_weight":88,"slug":89},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":91,"show_sort_weight":92,"slug":93},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":95,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":96,"show_sort_weight":97,"slug":98},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":100,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":101,"show_sort_weight":102,"slug":103},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":105,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":107},7,40,"healthcare",{"id":109,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":110,"show_sort_weight":111,"slug":112},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":114,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":115,"show_sort_weight":116,"slug":117},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":119,"show_sort_weight":116,"slug":120},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":122,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":123,"show_sort_weight":122,"slug":124},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":126,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":127,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":128},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":80,"data":130},{"doc_id":77,"user_id":131,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":132,"doc_module":4,"category_id":105,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":133,"file_id":134,"file_url":135,"file_type":136,"file_size":137,"view_count":22,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":100,"language":138,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":139,"faqs":140,"seo_title":141,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":142,"read_time":143},962088121634,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_9964176cb1d06d4a9deccf72a44ae3dc","The Power of  \nActive Citizenship  \nBy Bob Graham and Randi Weingarten  \nAt the end of the day, the students at my school felt one shared experience—our politicians abandoned us by failing to keep guns out of schools. But this time, my classmates and I are going to hold them to account. This time we are going to pressure them to take action.  \n–Cameron Kasky, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School  \nEarlier this year, a horrific tragedy unfolded at Marjory  \nStoneman Douglas High School in Broward County,  \nFlorida. On February 14, a former student walked into the school with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and mur-  \nBob Graham is aformer U.S. senator and governor of Florida. The author of four books, including America, the Owner’s Manual: You Can Fight City Hall—and Win, he currently leads efforts to encourage citizen engagement and train students to become future leaders through the Bob Graham Centerfor Public Service atthe University of Florida. Randi Weingarten is the president of the American Federation of Teachers. Highlights from her career include serving as the president of the United Federation of Teachers, as an AFT vice president, and as a history teacher at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights.  \ndered 17 students and staff in the deadliest high school shooting in American history. Only the 2012 mass killing at Sandy Hook Elementary School, with atoll of 26 young children and adult staff, resulted in a greater loss of life in a K–12 school. Since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, 187,000 students have experienced gun violence at their schools, and active shooter drills are now commonplace.  \nWe were devastated by the needless loss of life and anguished that yet another mass school shooting had taken place while commonsense gun safety legislation to protect America’s students and educators lingered in Congress and many state legislatures. Yet we were heartened by what came next. Because, rather than allowing themselves tobe further victimized, the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas began to take matters into their own hands, meeting and networking on social media, speaking to the media, participating in vigils, organizing walkouts and demonstrations, establishing coalitions with others who share their outrage and goals, and traveling to Tallahassee and Washington, D.C., to lobby on behalf of meaningful gun safety laws.  \nIn other words, theMarjory Stoneman Douglas students have been acting as informed and activated citizens, utilizing their constitutional rights to assemble and speak freely, and they have  \n4 AMERICAN EDUCATOR | SUMMER 2018  \nlearned competencies to petition the government for the redress of their grievances.  \nIt is notable that Florida, like most states, stopped teaching civics—the study of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy—in the 1960s, only to restore it by legislative action in 2010, with citizenship instruction making its way back into schools around 2011. (For more on each state’s civics education requirements, see the article on page 10.) Thus, these Marjory Stoneman Douglas students were among the first wave of students in Florida public schools tobe taught civicsin nearly four decades. For many of them, their civics education started in middle school and continued through a 12th-grade Advanced Placement government course where the teacher, Jeff Foster, espoused a simple mantra:“‘If you don’t participate, you can’t complain about things.’ I tell them in order to make a difference in the country, you need to participate. Unfortunately, we had this event happen [at Marjory Stoneman Douglas], and now it’s in live action.”Evidently, the education provided at Marjory Stoneman Douglas HighSchool served these courageous students well:  \nthey credit their teachers with introducing them to the civic knowledge and skills they have been using so effectively. Indeed, before the shooting, some students had just had this debate on guns in F","cbCaigJFwSVnEX6a","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaigJFwSVnEX6a","pdf",353042,"English","# The Power of Active Citizenship\n## A Response Rooted in Civic Action\n## An Antidote to Authoritarianism","[{\"question\":\"Why does the article describe students’ response as active citizenship?\",\"answer\":\"It describes students organizing and lobbying for gun safety rather than accepting victimization, using civic rights to assemble, speak freely, and petition government for policy redress.\"},{\"question\":\"What role does civics education play in the students’ activism?\",\"answer\":\"The article argues that civics instruction in Florida, restored in 2010 and taught at the high school, equipped students with the knowledge and skills to act effectively as citizens.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article connect school shooting activism to broader threats to democracy?\",\"answer\":\"It frames the events as happening amid global and U.S. challenges such as political polarization, economic inequality, dysfunction, declining civil society, and attacks on factual knowledge.\"}]","The Power of Active Citizenship | PDF",1792072801,15]