School for International Training (SIT) and Brattleboro Union High School (BUHS) faculty jointly developed a course in Civic Leadership for Fall 2001. The course addresses issues of concern to Vermont youth--beginning with child labor--and creates a training program to develop skills in civic leadership, advocacy, activism, conflict resolution, and diversity awareness. The pilot course was funded through the US Department of Education as part of the joint SIT/BUHS Child Labor Education and Action (CLEA) project that addresses issue of oppressive child labor. The goal is to replicate the course in Career Centers around Vermont in coming years. See course description below.

Civic Leadership
Instructors - Tim Kipp, John Ungerleider, Mary Gannon
3 Credits
Monday - Friday, 1:00 - 2:20

Course Description
The School for International Training (SIT) and Brattleboro Union High School (BUHS) faculty jointly developed a pilot course for Fall 2001. The course addresses issues of concern to Vermont youth--beginning with child labor--and creates a training program to develop student skills in civic leadership, advocacy, activism, conflict resolution, and diversity awareness. Local community, government and business leaders serve as guest speakers and provide relevant community service learning experiences to interested high school students. The course is an advanced Social Studies Seminar, taught in part at the SIT campus, with college credit. The pilot course was funded through the US Department of Education as part of the joint SIT/BUHS Child Labor Education and Action (CLEA) project that addresses the issue of oppressive child labor. While child labor is a vitally important human rights issue, this course contextualizes the issue within the larger concept of civic responsibility in a democratic society.

Key civic leadership course components
1. Classroom sessions: will be held at both BUHS and SIT, led by high school and college faculty.
2. Internships in public service: students would go into their communities and do structured internships, i.e., in town government, schools, the judicial system, social services, health and welfare agencies, labor unions, nonprofit organizations, etc.
3. Field trips: to study social change movements, visit museums and social historical sites, and visit NGOs and government offices in nearby cities - Boston, New York, Lowell (MA), Manchester (NH) and Washington DC.

Civic leadership course content and topics
1. Political science: the structure and functioning of government, federal, state, local;
2. Economics: the structure and function of the global economic system and the contemporary phenomenon of globalization, with a particular focus on labor rights issues;
3. Leadership skills: advocacy, public speaking, writing, networking, internet skills, research, proposal writing and program development, group dynamics skills, running a meeting, presenting a workshop, etc;
4. Conflict resolution skills: students could become conflict mediators and trainers in schools;
5. Diversity training: students will develop a critical analysis of issues of oppression and power relationships, and could become advocates in the areas of race, gender, class and sexual orientation;
6. Child labor: domestic and international economic and social justice issues;
7. Models of Leadership: students will study how individuals and groups have organized to affect change, i.e., women, workers, African- Americans; they will assess what skills are needed for effective leadership;
8. Media Literacy: students will critically analyze mass media and could work with local newspapers, television and radio stations;
9. Models of Social Change: students will study historical social change efforts, such as the civil rights, labor, women's and peace movements and relate those efforts to current action strategies for social change.

Course Requirements
Full attendance and meaningful participation in class sessions, completion of internship and final paper.

Course Objectives
Students will develop a critical, historical, analytic and skill-based foundation for careers in civic leadership. They will seek to build a social analysis of the underlying causes of a range of social problems and practice applying historical strategies for social change to current local, national and global problems.