I don't agree with the whole civics class issue. One class will not teach a person proper citizenship skills. A person is going to learn citizenship as soon as they are old enough to talk. Most parents teach their children proper values everyday as the issue arises and citizenship is a mixture of those values. As a teacher and a parent, I can pick out the students or children that have had good citizenship skills taught to them outside of a school setting (home life). It is wonderful to see these students apply their skills, but yet I also see the students who do not possess these skills. I feel sorry for these students, as it really isn't their fault they haven't learned proper values and citizenship skills accepted in society. I blame their parents. These students did not grow up around loved ones (parents, siblings, etc.) to see good citizenship at work, it was the total opposite. These parents are not going to change their way of life so I believe the school system can try to help. I don't think teachers should be held responsible to teach the students good citizenship, but I do think they should try their hardest to help those students that need taught good citizenship skills. When a student enters school and each teacher that student has from year to year, shows examples of citizenship (ex. being respectful, picking up trash, helping others, saying kind words) it might make a huge impact on that student by the time they are ready to graduate. I know we don't have time to squeeze in class time to teach citizenship, but if we show it before school, during school, after school, during lunch, and during recess, the students will "GET IT". I firmly believe that every teacher impacts at least one or two students a year, and wouldn't be great if it was the students who needed help with societies values, since they didn't get it from home. That students life could change for the better as they get older, and they would always remember who helped them. A negative cycle would be broken and they would instill good citizenship values into their own children.