Five good 

citizenship themes
Compassion

Courage Honesty

Responsibility Respect
 HOW TO BE TRUSTWORTHY
• BE HONEST Don't lie, cheat, or steal.
• 
• BE RELIABLE Keep your promises and follow through on your commitments.
• 
• HAVE THE COURAGE to do what is right, even when it seems difficult.
• 
• BE A GOOD FRIEND and don't betray a trust.
• 1-How do you know when you can trust someone?

• 2-What does trusting someone mean?

• 3-What makes a person trustworthy?

• 4-Can you image starting a friendship with someone you

don’t trust? What would that be like?

• 5-What are the benefits of being a trustworthy person?

Are You a Trustworthy Person?
(Take this self-evaluation and decide for yourself.)
 Honesty
• Honesty is the basic theme of good citizenship.
• A person must be honest with others, and with
himself or herself, in order to be a good citizen.
 Compassion
• Compassion is the emotion of caring for people and
for other living things.
• Compassion gives a person an emotional bond with
his or her world.
 Respect
• Respect is similar to compassion but different in some
ways.
• An important aspect of respect is self-respect, whereas
compassion is directed toward others.
• Respect is also directed toward inanimate things or ideas as
well as toward people. For example, people should have
respect for laws. Finally, respect includes the idea of
esteem or admiration, whereas compassion is a feeling
people can have for others they don't necessarily admire.
 Responsibility
• Out of honesty, compassion, and respect comes
Responsibility, which includes both private, personal
responsibility and public responsibility.
• Individuals and groups have responsibilities. Responsibility
is about action, and it includes much of what people think
of as good citizenship. You may wish to point out that one
of the main responsibilities of students is to learn. They
must educate themselves so that they can live up to their
full potential.
 Courage
• Finally, the theme of Courage is important to good
citizenship.
• Human beings are capable of moving beyond mere
goodness toward greatness. Courage enables people to do
the right thing even when its unpopular, difficult, or
dangerous. Many people---including Ben Franklin, Thomas
Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., Susan B. Anthony, and
Mohandas Gandhi---have had the courage to change the
rules to achieve justice.
Activities for Exploring the Five Themes of
Citizenship: Grades 4, 5, and 6
• In general, fourth through sixth-graders have a pretty
good understanding of the concepts of honesty,
compassion, respect, responsibility, and courage.
Whether they behave honestly, compassionately, and
so on is another matter, but that's true for people of
all ages: Everyone finds it challenging, from time to
time, to live up to those high ideals.
• One key reason for this is that citizenship ideals
sometimes conflict with one another or with other
values. With young people, peer pressure -- the desire
to make and keep friends at almost any cost -- often
competes with other ideals. Following are some
activities that can help students explore some of the
problems in living up to the five themes of citizenship.
• Truth in Friendship (Use as a writing prompt, a
discussion starter, or a role-playing activity.)
Imagine that a friend is going to do a comedy act
in a talent contest. He tells you the jokes from
the act. The jokes are awful. Do your tell him? If
so, how do you say it?
• Test Your Compassion (Use as a writing prompt
or a role-playing activity.)
You find out that a friend had no time to study
for a test because she had to help around the
house when her mother was sick. So your friend
cheats on the test. What do you say to her?
What do you do? Do you tell the teacher?
(Discuss after writing or role-playing.)
• Respect (Use as a writing prompt or a role-
playing activity.)
Imagine that you live near an elderly couple. Two
or three of your friends are visiting you and they
see the two old people. Your friends start making
fun of the elderly people behind their backs.
What, if anything, do you say to your friends?
What might happen if your neighbors overhear
what is going on? (Discuss after writing or role-
playing.)
• Fulfilling Small Responsibilities (Use as a writing
prompt or a discussion starter.)
Lots of little things make up good behavior, such as not
littering, keeping quiet when people need to
concentrate, and returning library books on time. Make
a list of small responsibilities. (That part of the activity
might be done in small, cooperative groups.) Then try
to think of a situation in which you fulfilled one of the
small responsibilities. Think of another situation in
which you did not fulfill a small responsibility. Are the
"little" things really that important? Why or why not?
• It Takes Guts (Use as a writing prompt.)
Imagine you're playing basketball with a friend.
Some kids come up and take your friend's
basketball. Create more specific details about this
kind of situation, and then describe what you
would do. (Discuss and role-play based on the
additional circumstances students describe in
their writing. Note that sometimes a person
needs courage to walk away from a situation.)