“The Next Great Americans” are sitting in the classrooms of today’s schools.

These students might excel in teach-to-test subjects, but do they have more than a little knowledge of civics, character, financial responsibility and career readiness?

That is the question the Liberty Learning Foundation addresses as it takes its Super Citizen Program on the road to classrooms in the schools of Pike County and far beyond.

Becky Saunders, the Southern Regional Education director for the Liberty Learning Foundation, was the program guest at the Brundidge Rotary Club Wednesday. She is working with the schools in Pike County.

Saunders enlightened the Rotarians about the program that is designed to teach students that they each hold a title more important than doctor, lawyer, scientist, even president. They hold the title of citizen.

“Our students deserve to learn the great American story that gives context to their important roles in our country’s future,” Saunders said.

The Super Citizen Program donates teaching tools to the schools in which they are “enrolled.” The program puts on exciting performances, trains teachers and gets the community involved.

“The Super Citizen Program creates and carries out grand learning experiences that teach, inspire and empower our Next Great Americans,” Saunders said. “The Super Citizen Program teaches beyond the test. It provides students with hands-on experiences that they will remember for a long time.”

Civic leadership and character building are goals of the program. Saunders said students need to learn how to treat others, to accept responsibility, to be self-sufficient and to be financially literate.

To learn these traits, students need positive role models in their lives. They need to see good things and then do good things.

Saunders said one of the most emotional pieces of the Super Citizen program is Torch Teams. Students team up to nominate, campaign for and ultimately honor local heroes from their own community.

In the process, the students learn to recognize the traits of a hometown hero.

“By learning about and modeling the character traits of the heroes they honor, these students truly learn to turn learning into action,” Saunders said. “By honoring a hero, they become heroes themselves.”

The culminating activity of the 10-week program will be the graduation/celebration, which will bring together the students from the participating schools in the Pike County School System.

The students will be recognized for their hard work and encouraged to continue their important work as the future of America.

Their heroes will also be honored during the graduation ceremony and will each receive a Liberty Replica, which the students have purchased with money they have earned.

Saunders said through in-depth learning, real world practice and self-examination, students discover and define their important roles in America’s future.