First, there are different kinds of citizens. A person can be a citizen of one's nation, one's state, the entire world, etc. A citizen of a nation also holds the power of charging government. The rights of citizens also comes with duties. And to be a good citizen is not hard. You need to do the duties and be responsible. There is a question Professor Mike Hartoonion of the University of Michigan says, one should ask oneself to know what can one improve or what else can one do, and the question is "What can I do for my community to create more wealth, knowledge and justice?" This question can help one become a better citizen.
As previously stated in the first paragraph, there are many different kinds of citizens. Now I am going to talk about citizen of one's school. To be a citizen of school, one needs to participate in school or education. For example, I am a citizen of Hsinchu International School. To be a "good" citizen of school or any communities, there are duties and responsibilities to do.
Some duties and responsibilities in my - HIS are, be respectful to everyone, cooperate with others, be friendly to everyone, help the people who need helps, obey the rules of HIS, no hidden bias (very important), etc. What does it mean to have hidden bias? Well, to have hidden bias means to have an unconsious bias in your mind, but you don't really know it. To not have hidden bias you have to understand yourself first and then find out the problems.
There are still a lot of things that I need to improve. I think I need to speak more English, because others from other nations or countries that don't speak Chinese won't be able to understand. I also need to concentrate more n class and try not to say bad things behind others back. And try not to have prejudice (opinion, prejudgment, or attitude about a group), stereotypes (exaggerated belief, image, or distorted truth about a person or group). We learn prejudice from our family, school, peers, friends or media.
After talking about citizen of school, let's extend to a bigger community. There are two ways to become citizens of a nation or country. A naturalized citizen means a person that work or stay in a nation (a nation that you are not a citizen of) for certain time and filled out some forms and paper then it's (nation's) government will give you the passport of that nation, then you're the citizen of that nation. A native citizen means a person is born to be the citizen of the nation.
I am a citizen of Taiwan. Citizens have rights, but duties come with rights. Duties of citizen of Taiwan; pay taxes, obey the laws, involved in the precess of deciding who will run the government, serve in juries, serve in the military (if required), etc.
I don't really know if I'm a good citizen of Taiwan or not, but I think I am. Because I am not eighteen years old yet, so I don't know. But I will try my best to be a good citizen! There is one important thing that one must do to be a good citizen, that is try to help one's nation and make it better.
What does a citizen of one's world mean? It means that you are a part of the world or you are a member of the world. How to become a citizen of one's world? Usually if one live in that world, the one are a citizen of that world. No paperwork is required. What are some duties and responsibilities of being a citizen of one's world? To me, there are two major duties. First, try to slow down the Global Warming. Global Warming is the long-term average climate (tempterature, precipitation, winds, etc.)of the Global is changing. There are several ways to stop or slow it, to do recycle, reuse, and reduce things, turn off lights, unplug the plug when you don't need it, etc. Global Warming requires Global Citizenship because it is done by the whole world, and it will affect whole world. Second, to participate in some global activities, like candlelights.
Am I a good citizen? Why or why not? How can I do better? I think I am a good citizen of my world. Because I wrote two essays, five posters, and one presentation on Global Warming. And I've been in a discussion about the problem of Global Warming before. What I can do to improve is do more recycle, reuse, and reduce. There was a meeting in Netherlands, about how to stop Global Warming. Also I can be a social boundary crosser, because I think there are only little connection between the cliques of black people and Asian people. Example of social boundaries crosser is Rosa Parks. She crossed the boundaries line of black and white people in the U.S. And there was discrimination in my family, my mom thinks that all black people are stupid and dirty. But after this class I told my mom about the things I learned in this class, and she started to change her belief.
In conclusion, the most important things is discrimination, stereotypes, and prejudice. The effects of stereotypes and prejudice can be small or big. It can be a group that one don't like and one said bad thins about them and then having a fight with people getting feelings hurt. Or and misunderstandings between nations that can lead to war with thousands of people being killed (example, War World II).
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