Civic Identity
By Kaylee Hasek
By Kaylee Hasek
"Civic identity does not develop in isolation. It develops over time through engagement with others who bring a wide variety of interpretations, life experiences, and characteristics to any discussion of moral dilemmas. It develops in the context of engaging the real social, political, and economic structures within any given society or culture. Thus the development of civic identity in our students is truly community work."
-L. Lee Knefelkamp (citation link included)
Our Alternative Spring Break trip to Kansas City was the exact educational experience that L. Lee Knefelkamp hoped would bring college aged students to understand their civic identity. All 16 of us joined this Spring Break effort to learn about and assist in the education of Kansas City students, and to do so through hands-on experiences with the people we served.
This engagement with the community became the greatest aspect in shaping the values we brought back from our journey. We came home to Iowa City with a greater knowledge of situations like poverty, illiteracy, and homelessness that we had been fortunate enough to remain ignorant on until this point in life. Through time spent with individuals who lived with the effects of these situations every day, we came to understand the needs of our community in a new, realistic light, and develop our civic identity with this knowledge.
Like Knefelkamp says, coming to know people who have a variety of life experiences develops a context for the social and economic structures that exist around us. We were able to see our civic identity, or our place in society, through this context. Even more importantly, we see the civic obligations of our privilege to take action in lifting others up towards a life with independence and certainty like our own.