If Christians accept that God has ordained our democracy, we then desire to possess
a character of civic engagement that reflects this fact, driving us to learn about our society and to consider in prayer the best course for our nation.
Our plan is grounded in the following two premises: 1) When purposefully synchronized with one another across multiple forms
of media («cross-media»), children's and adolescents» exposure to high quality youth - oriented social and ethical story content, i.e. stories
of substance specifically about
character development, compassion, and courage (CCC), is a powerful way to promote youth academic achievement and ethical values; 2) Especially if these stories, told and «read» across media, in their various genres (human interest, biography, history and historical fiction,
civic engagement, coming
of age, social change, spiritual awakening, moral issues, etc.), are «taught» by «educators» (broadly defined) using an «evidence - based» pedagogy that A) makes use
of peer to peer, and adult facilitated group discussion and debate as a primary form
of instruction, and B) takes advantage
of access to the texts
of the story that are made available cross-media (narratives, scripts, videos, etc.) to foster students» critical thinking and ethical reflection skills.
The goal
of YES is to promote academic achievement, critical thinking,
character development and
civic engagement through the teaching strategy
of service - learning.