Surgeries, Mario, and Civics

Op-Ed Rough Draft: Merriam-Webster defines the citizen as “a person who legally belongs to a country and has the rights and protection of that country”, it is also the most important role of our political system. Some might say that the positions of Senator, Governor, President, or Justice are more important, they would be wrong. In a democracy, the citizen is a voter and has the opportunity, even the obligation, to participate in a way that determines the governance of the state. Being a democratic republic makes America a member of what is still a very small club of nations, that give so much power to the people, but as the saying goes, “with great power, comes great responsibility”. It is not enough to just be an individual who goes and votes, with no knowledge of the people, positions, or system, we must ensure that the goal is to have informed citizens. We the people, in Texas, and around the country, must demand our government make civics education a priority to ensure that young people are being taught how to research problems adequately and make a change in their democracy.

Throughout the 87th legislative session, there were almost two dozen civicsrelated bills on the docket here in Texas, and I had the privilege to work with several organizations to push for comprehensive civics education. The goal was to make it so that students here in Texas become more knowledgeable of our democratic system and ideally were introduced to a curriculum that would allow them to get involved in their communities, taking on projects where they interact with leaders to make a change. This was not the final bill that passed, instead, we got HB 3979, which led to the now-infamous memo in Southlake where an administrator suggested that if a teacher is going to teach about the Holocaust, they should also provide an “alternative view”. Needless to say, this is a major step backward, and while the memo was retracted, it shows that the legislature’s attempt to have an impact on civics was a 18