Author(s)

Seungho Moon¹, Jenna Mortensen Nelson¹, Yeorim Hwang², Mary Danley³

¹Teaching and Learning Program, School of Education, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
²School of Teaching and Curriculum Leadership, College of Education, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA.
³Margaret White Elementary School, Blythe, CA, USA.

The ARtS (Aesthetic, Reflexive thoughts, & Sharing) Initiative is an innovative program for engaging children in reflexive thought about active citizenship in urban communities. This article explicates how children use art to imagine the alternatives in civic education. Using the heart metaphor as active citizenship, the authors illustrate how this organ connects citizens and pumps our desire for a better community through our veins, thus instigating social change. This article demonstrates the power of imagination to inspire students to conceptualize a more just society.

Aesthetic Education, Civic Education, Art-Based Inquiry, Urban Education

Moon, S. , Nelson, J. , Hwang, Y. and Danley, M. (2017) Heart Is Active Citizenship: Reimagining Civic Education. Creative Education, 8, 1673-1681. doi: 10.4236/ce.2017.810113.