Causes: Arts & Culture, Education, Media & Communications
Mission: Close Up's mission is to inform, inspire, and empower young people to exercise the rights and accept the responsibilities of citizens in a democracy.
Programs: The overarching goal of all Close Up’s student programs is to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for effective and responsible participation in the processes of democratic society and the American political system. Given that goal, their core commitment to experiential learning becomes clear: Citizenship in a democracy demands a readiness and capacity to act. Close Up’s role in helping students develop that readiness and capacity lies in direct exposure to the historical foundations, institutional structures, and day-to-day practices that underlie reasoned discourse, debate and cooperative decision-making. Close Up’s program offerings include: their flagship Washington Program, a Program for New Americans specifically designed for recently-immigrated students, an Asia Pacific Program set in Hawaii where students discuss foreign policy issues in depth, the Founding of a Nation program where students visit five historic East Coast sites, and a Teacher Program that runs parallel to each of their student offerings. Since 1971, more than 850,000 students and educators have participated in Close Up's weeklong government studies programs in the nation's capital. Each year, more than 20,000 participants partake in Close Up's Washington, D. C. -based programs, while thousands more across the country utilize the organization’s in-class resources. They see the primary role of the Close Up experience as complementary to classroom civic learning; their part is to take learning out of the book and place it in the lived experience of the student. In order to move from the conceptual basis of civic education to an empowering engagement with the concrete processes and controversies of contemporary politics, Close Up provides students with practical opportunities to experience for themselves the problems and prospects of political activity. Close Up’s teaching methodology and participant diversity more accurately reflects what students will face in their adult lives and is unlike anything that could be simulated in a classroom. More information on Close Up programs can be found on its Web site (www. closeup. org).
Mission: Close Up's mission is to inform, inspire, and empower young people to exercise the rights and accept the responsibilities of citizens in a democracy.
Programs: The overarching goal of all Close Up’s student programs is to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for effective and responsible participation in the processes of democratic society and the American political system. Given that goal, their core commitment to experiential learning becomes clear: Citizenship in a democracy demands a readiness and capacity to act. Close Up’s role in helping students develop that readiness and capacity lies in direct exposure to the historical foundations, institutional structures, and day-to-day practices that underlie reasoned discourse, debate and cooperative decision-making. Close Up’s program offerings include: their flagship Washington Program, a Program for New Americans specifically designed for recently-immigrated students, an Asia Pacific Program set in Hawaii where students discuss foreign policy issues in depth, the Founding of a Nation program where students visit five historic East Coast sites, and a Teacher Program that runs parallel to each of their student offerings. Since 1971, more than 850,000 students and educators have participated in Close Up's weeklong government studies programs in the nation's capital. Each year, more than 20,000 participants partake in Close Up's Washington, D. C. -based programs, while thousands more across the country utilize the organization’s in-class resources. They see the primary role of the Close Up experience as complementary to classroom civic learning; their part is to take learning out of the book and place it in the lived experience of the student. In order to move from the conceptual basis of civic education to an empowering engagement with the concrete processes and controversies of contemporary politics, Close Up provides students with practical opportunities to experience for themselves the problems and prospects of political activity. Close Up’s teaching methodology and participant diversity more accurately reflects what students will face in their adult lives and is unlike anything that could be simulated in a classroom. More information on Close Up programs can be found on its Web site (www. closeup. org).
info@closeup.org
1330 Braddock Place Suite 400, Alexandria, VA 22314
703-706-3300
Arts & Culture
Alexandria
