Editor’s note: This Community Voice was one of numerous entries in our recently concluded Emerging Writers Contest.

Hawaiian history is taught in fourth and seventh grades, and one more year in high school. As a result, most public school graduates have a passing knowledge of Hawaiian kings and queens, color and number words, the unification of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and the events leading up to statehood.

What if civics education were taught as early and with the same intent to provide basics, as suggested by Jade Moon in a recent MidWeek column? I suggest one year of state history is enough, as is required in other states, before high school. Civics can be taught in layers of increasing complexity, building on knowledge from previous years instead of haphazard, stand-alone classes.

The beginning of our country is like a combination of a zombie apocalypse and world-building adventure game. Elementary students can understand why pioneers risked the sea voyage, starting from absolutely nothing to build something new. They can learn about the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, famine, disease, harsh weather, and building, growing, hunting, and trading for every single thing the settlers needed to survive.

Understanding that we were the first to build a nation based on the belief that government’s role was to secure our unalienable rights given by God — “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” — is essential to developing national pride. Only then can citizens grasp their role in government through voting, maintaining a free press, and being an informed citizenry that holds its elected officials accountable.

One class at the end of high school is too late to adequately address these ideas. Students have other things on their mind than sports, college, work, sex, and themselves. The last thing they want to incorporate into their identity is their role in government and why they should vote.

To Bind Us Together

People vote when they see its value. They need to learn as soon as possible and before college. Civics education is important for everybody, not just college students. It grounds us and binds us together as a country.

When we do not understand our rights and the limits of government it becomes very easy to lose those rights and for government to overstep its bounds. An educated populace is harder to control and trick into fascism or socialism.

Educated does not necessarily mean school-educated. Our Founding Fathers were self-educated.

Lifelong learning is the best way to stay on your toes about politics and social issues.

I know everyone is busy, but civics education starts with parents. Who else is going to care more about the country’s future than we who want our children to grow up happy and safe?

Lifelong learning is the best way to stay on your toes about politics and social issues.

Two curriculums that develop excellent U.S. history and civics education are K-12 and Ron Paul Curriculum. K-12 uses the well-regarded and well-rounded “A History of US” series by Joy Hakim to make history fascinating. Both curriculums break the ideas up into interlocking pieces that start as early as third grade.

Parents and teens can also take free online courses from Hillsdale College, Coursera, and EdX. Clear, helpful civics videos are available at PragerU. Both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are easy to read, much more so than contemporary legal documents or any part of the tax code.

I recommend the audiobook “The Three Documents That Made America: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights,” introduction by Sam Fink. You can listen in the car.

Why does it even matter? Because we were the first to do democracy this way. Everyone else is a copycat. These freedoms we criticize, complain about, and take for granted — we are in danger of losing it all. The UK, Canada, and Australia have passed laws in the past 10 years limiting free speech. Are we next?