For my interview paper, I decided to consult Ms. Jennifer Kalish who has worked at the Los Angeles Superior Court as the JusticeCorps Program Director since its premier in 2004. Justice Corps trains a selected group of college students every year to volunteer in several civil courts to provide litigation process and translation assistance. She has been able to engage and assist citizens of all walks of life, and I believed that her exposure to the inequalities in American society through the judicial system would yield an interesting perspective of the role and responsibilities of being a citizen. Ms. Kalish can be reached at (213) 633-0692 or at jkalish@lacourt.org. During one of the first class meetings for PPD 240, we were assigned to
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In this, I was able to understand that Ms. Kalish’s idea of citizenship aligns with Mary Parker Follett’s diagnosis of a citizen’s duties to be active, responsible, and engaged (Cooper). For Kalish, the more “complicated level of citizenship” is an application of being active and engaged to the responsibility aforementioned. To fulfill her definition of citizenship requires an awareness of the theoretical barriers that serves an impediment to citizens. Engaging and being active would build society off of these moral implications to make the community as a whole better. The room for interpretation in her definition allowed me to reflect that it’s not enough to simply consider the technical, legal obligations within a society that is intertwined in a web of goods and services provided by an ever-evolving, diverse population. We should attempt to nurture each citizen’s potential by coming to understand their individual historical makeup and utilizing creative methods to make their unique skills …show more content…
She understands that what we can “ offer as a child, teenager, college student, single adult, parent, grandparent, are different. Each stage has its own opportunities and limitations.” I realized then that this is perhaps where habits of ethical citizenship start to take form. Our capacity to engage and be responsible is greatly correlated with how active we’ve been in connecting and sympathizing with others and their perspectives. Kalish theoretically lays out an outline of this citizen development: “As a young person you have the opportunity to learn how to care about those you come in contact with. Hopefully you develop empathy and gradually learn that there is a world beyond yourself. As people more toward young adulthood I would hope they keep an open mind and question everything. They should try to expose themselves to as many different types of people and situations as possible.” Although I’ve always been advised to make connections with an array of people, the purpose behind doing so was always to grow my phonebook of resources. My parents, academic advisors, and friends alike have stressed the importance of meeting people so that I may fall back on to them in the future to lever me into some work position. Kalish sees the
In this, I was able to understand that Ms. Kalish’s idea of citizenship aligns with Mary Parker Follett’s diagnosis of a citizen’s duties to be active, responsible, and engaged (Cooper). For Kalish, the more “complicated level of citizenship” is an application of being active and engaged to the responsibility aforementioned. To fulfill her definition of citizenship requires an awareness of the theoretical barriers that serves an impediment to citizens. Engaging and being active would build society off of these moral implications to make the community as a whole better. The room for interpretation in her definition allowed me to reflect that it’s not enough to simply consider the technical, legal obligations within a society that is intertwined in a web of goods and services provided by an ever-evolving, diverse population. We should attempt to nurture each citizen’s potential by coming to understand their individual historical makeup and utilizing creative methods to make their unique skills …show more content…
She understands that what we can “ offer as a child, teenager, college student, single adult, parent, grandparent, are different. Each stage has its own opportunities and limitations.” I realized then that this is perhaps where habits of ethical citizenship start to take form. Our capacity to engage and be responsible is greatly correlated with how active we’ve been in connecting and sympathizing with others and their perspectives. Kalish theoretically lays out an outline of this citizen development: “As a young person you have the opportunity to learn how to care about those you come in contact with. Hopefully you develop empathy and gradually learn that there is a world beyond yourself. As people more toward young adulthood I would hope they keep an open mind and question everything. They should try to expose themselves to as many different types of people and situations as possible.” Although I’ve always been advised to make connections with an array of people, the purpose behind doing so was always to grow my phonebook of resources. My parents, academic advisors, and friends alike have stressed the importance of meeting people so that I may fall back on to them in the future to lever me into some work position. Kalish sees the