Educational Technology Facilitator
Grant MacEwan University

Reflection

After receiving heavy criticisms, the Canadian government redeveloped and published a new citizenship examination study guide in 2009; this artefact outlines the evaluation of the study guide, compares and contrasts it with its predecessor, and critiques it based on Schugurensky's article of integrated citizenship education.

This particular artefact is probably the most personal one out of all the work I have completed throughout my MDDE study and, therefore, I also learned the most through the process.  The focus of MDDE 611 is the foundations of adult education and after I completed all the required readings, Schugurensky's integrated citizenship theory caught my eye as I reflected upon my own experience with citizenship education and came to the conclusion that I received virtually none in my schooling.  As an elementary student in Taiwan, the citizenship education I had received, was filled with propaganda promoting the Republic of China.  As a junior high school student in Hong Kong, citizenship education was completely removed from the curriculum in order to meet the high demand of academic success in other academic subjects.  As a senior high school student in Canada, becoming proficient in English was once again a more pressing focus than citizenship education.  As a result, I did not receive any "formal" citizenship education until I was in the process of applying for Canadian citizenship.  However, I found the citizenship examination process encourages newcomers to memorize and regurgitate facts in order to pass the citizenship examination rather than focusing on a life-long integrated citizenship education (1.1). 
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Schugurensky's integrated citizenship theory; as a result, provoked me to think further and deeper about what constitutes an integrated citizenship education (1.2).  I asked myself questions I had never considered before: Is Canada’s citizenship examination study guide, old or new, sufficient in providing Canada's newcomers an integrated citizenship education?  Does the guide address the four citizenship dimensions of status, identity, civic virtue and agency, as Schugurensky has identified? Did the guide, old or new, receive fair criticism from the public (1.3)? 
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What I struggled with most in completing this assignment was the fact there was no academic research available on the old or the new citizenship examination guides; it was quite challenging for me to leave the safety blanket of peer-reviewed journals behind and rely on news articles and opinion pieces for synthesis (1.4).  After some initial struggling, I realized in many subject areas such as citizenship education, public and anecdotal opinions are just as, if not more, valuable and therefore deserve proper critical analysis (1.5).  Consequently, I should approach the assignment as synthesis rather than research of the different materials available to me.  Instead of simply presenting information I have learned, I should also bring my own experience and opinion into my writing to direct the central flow of the assignment (4.3).  
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To summarize, through completing this assignment, I not only discovered the lack of citizenship education in my personal experiences, I also learned to research, analyze and present arguments in a new way of writing.