Engaging our future: A guide to going into the classroom

In the last three blogs we have been talking about citizen engagement (see here, here, and here).  One of the areas that is most frustrating for governments is often their attempts to engage citizens are not particularly successful.  Citizens may not have time or easy access to the events and resources, but there are ways around that.  What happens when it is simply that citizens DO NOT WANT to engage?  That is often the reality.  Governments spend precious time and resources developing great opportunities but no one (or few) takes advantage of them.  This is an aspect of citizen engagement I have been personally interested in and one that I believe we can address by starting ‘em young. Alright, maybe not that young!  That being said, we have a captive audience with school-aged children that I think we could take better advantage of.  Maybe it is because I grew up in the generation of D.A.R.E. classes or because I volunteered for Junior Achievement in grad school, but I believe in the power of reaching out to kids to teach them about important civic principals like budgeting and government. That being said, I had never taught kids before (other than with Junior