A vivid lesson in value of citizenship

For hundreds of Palatine middle school students, this version of the Pledge of Allegiance had to have a special significance.

The students crowded into the gymnasium Wednesday at Winston Campus Junior High to watch as 26 “foreigners” became foreigners no more, officially and happily assuming the blessings and duties of citizenship in the United States of America.

To say that most Americans take the blessings part of the citizenship equation for granted is a cliché and an understatement. Come this November, if half of those of us who registered bother to actually vote — the defining activity of American citizenship — it will be cause for celebration.

Winston’s program gave students a personal connection to 26 individuals — from 18 countries — who not only do not take for granted the responsibility to vote but also actually look forward to their first opportunity to participate in the democracy that determines how the United States is ruled.

Voting was indeed foremost in the mind of Marco Lopez, a native of Guatemala, who began working seven years ago to achieve a status that the students watching him have enjoyed from birth, with nothing more required than that they pass a constitution test before they go into high school.

“Now I can vote,” Lopez told Daily Herald reporter Kimberly Pohl, “which means a lot to me.”

Perhaps now it will also mean a lot to many of the Winston Campus students, who might otherwise have not felt more impetus to participate in their democracy than the tired lecturing of teachers and newspapers.

Assistant Principal Scott Scafidi, a driving force behind the effort to bring the citizenship ceremony to Winston Campus, had hoped to show his young charges what he experienced when he attended a naturalization ceremony last fall at a Chicago grade school.

“I thought this could be an intensely powerful experience for our students while also tying in various lessons in the curriculum,” he said.

That many if not all of the students felt the “intense power” of watching two dozen people embrace a new country — their country — we have little doubt. At the same time, we hope that the message and the engagement doesn’t end there.

The experience the Winston Campus students shared, achieved with the help of the federal government and a nonpartisan agency called Citizenship Counts, should be duplicated by other suburban schools. Even more important, it should be a source of inspiration and education for all of us, regardless of our age or station in life.

It may help emphasize for native citizens the precious opportunities with which they are born. And, while few of us take lightly the Pledge of Allegiance, considering it in this context cannot but help us all to a greater appreciation of what it really means.