The People Teaching Me Civics Weren’t Born Here; My Immigrant ESL Students in Virginia Are Reminding Me What Citizenship Requires

by Joyce McClure, Bridge2Blue

I still remember civics class in the 1950s and 1960s. The world felt calm following World War II. Then came Vietnam and my generation rebelled. But we knew how government worked.

Granted, for me anyway, that might have been due in part to my father’s career in local government as a city manager. But I remember learning about the three branches of government, checks and balances, and how a bill became a law. Like many students, I probably wondered at the time when I would ever use any of it. It felt dry and distant—something to memorize for a test before moving on.

It’s now years later and I have unexpectedly found myself back in civics class.

I teach English in Virginia to adult immigrants. My students have come from Tibet, Colombia, El Salvador, Bhutan, Nepal, The Republic of Congo, and elsewhere. Some arrived after long and difficult journeys. Some waited years in refugee camps navigating immigration systems.

Along the way, they studied.

Not just English.

They learned about the Constitution, separation of powers, voting rights, the responsibilities of citizenship and how the government works. They learned what federal and state governments do. They learned why courts matter and how elections function.

And I have noticed something uncomfortable.

Many of my students know more about the American government than many Americans born here.

I have even helped some of them prepare for the citizenship exam. I expected to be the teacher in those moments. Instead, there were times when I found myself learning alongside them. A few questions stopped me cold. I had to look up the answers myself. It was a humbling reminder that simply being born here does not automatically make us informed citizens.

This is not criticism. It is an observation.

Their relationship with citizenship is different. For many new citizens living in Virginia, democracy is not background noise. It is not something inherited and assumed. Some came from places where governments were unstable, where opportunities were limited, where rights felt uncertain, or where speaking openly carried consequences.

Their path to citizenship was not automatic.

It was earned.

Before writing this, I checked to make sure memory had not overtaken reality. Maybe I was simply romanticizing the past and imagining that schools had abandoned civics, blaming its disappearance for what we saw as growing ignorance.

Virginia’s Department of Education says otherwise. The Commonwealth states that civic education is central to the state’s public-school mission and requires public high schools to provide eligible students access to voter registration information and opportunities to register during the school day.

By one recent analysis, only eight states do not require some form of dedicated civics coursework or assessment before high school graduation.

So perhaps the problem is not that civics has disappeared.

Perhaps something is lost between the lesson and the citizen.

Knowledge that is not used fades. Information memorized for a test rarely becomes permanent. Adults also learn much of what they know about government long after leaving school—and increasingly they learn it from social media feeds, online personalities and cable-news ecosystems designed to capture attention rather than encourage understanding.

Local newspapers—like the morning and evening editions tossed onto my parents’ doorstep every day—once explained city council meetings, school-board decisions, zoning issues and local budgets. Many communities no longer have that resource, or it arrives digitally rather than landing on the front porch.

The result is that the government increasingly feels distant and abstract until it suddenly lands in our lives through taxes, healthcare costs, school policies, housing prices or debates over community development.

Then we realize government was never abstract at all.

Virginia offers plenty of examples.

Many residents who have never attended a public meeting suddenly find themselves showing up at school-board meetings. Others become involved over development and data center proposals around Virginia. People who have never followed politics are discovering that decisions made in Richmond affect traffic patterns, utility costs, schools and the character of their neighborhoods.

People engage when something directly affects their lives.

But civic knowledge should not begin only when people are angry.

We seem increasingly trapped in a political culture that rewards outrage over understanding. People know the latest social-media controversy, but many struggle to explain basic governmental functions. We know the personalities. We know the slogans. But do we understand the machinery underneath?

Can we explain the difference between state and federal powers? How local governments function? What school boards actually do? How legislation moves through the process? Which offices affect our lives most directly?

Too often we talk about democracy as though it operates on autopilot.

It doesn’t.

Democracy depends on citizens who understand what they are participating in.

And perhaps this is where we need to think differently about civics.

I am not arguing for another standardized test. I am not arguing for students to memorize dates or recite lists of amendments.

I am arguing for citizenship as a practical skill.

Teach students how local governments shape their communities. Teach them how to evaluate information and recognize manipulation; how to disagree without treating opponents as enemies; how to attend a town hall, understand a school-board agenda or follow a local issue from proposal to decision.

Teach citizenship as something people do, not simply something people inherit.

I’m reminded of something else from years ago. Students did not simply read about the government. Some communities had days when students stepped into the roles of mayor, city council members and other local officials. Programs like the Model UN allowed students to debate issues, negotiate solutions and experience the messy reality of governing. Many of those programs still exist, but perhaps they belong less at the edges of education and more at the center of it.

Government becomes real when people experience it rather than simply memorize it.

My immigrant students remind me of something many of us may have forgotten.

Democracy does not survive because people are born into it.

Every generation has to practice it again.