This past week, I was in Washington, D.C., presenting at a three-day educational conference on critical issues including testing, financing, improving achievement and students whose first language is not English.

One of the main speakers asked the 700 participants, many of whom came in school groups with their administrator, to reach agreement on their “vision statement” in order to engage the entire community in the goals and objectives for teachers and students.

My presentation was to be on “Teaching with the Brain in Mind,” and I was scheduled for the closing keynote. To be in the nation’s capital the very week of the inauguration was an exciting moment for me and millions of people who were there to see President Barack Obama sworn in as the 44th president of the United States.

The very nature of how we smoothly transition from one president to another was the topic my cab driver, a man from the Sudan in Africa, couldn’t get over. In his country, there is always war and bloodshed and instability. It caused me to reflect on the seven years my organization was in Czechoslovakia after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War.

In our initial visit, we learned that one of the hallmarks of their education was that a communist principle had to underscore every lesson at all grade levels. A very powerful tool to be sure. This “occupied” country needed to understand the political base that controlled its system. Only 14 percent of the citizens were communist, but you never knew who they really were except for the leaders in government.

I was reminded of all this as the participants at the conference were working hard to find a strong vision. There was talk of student potential, academic achievement, closing the gap between student performance literacy and other familiar goals.

It struck me that the most important vision we can have for public education is that our students become responsible citizens. Where do our students, and our very large immigration population, learn to understand the framework and goals necessary to maintain a democracy with so many diverse people?

Truly there is no more important reason to learn to read, write, think and understand math — and all those other subjects — than to see how they contribute to responsible citizenship in a free country.

I was fortunate to grow up in a politically active home, where learning about government and our role in it were obvious.

In school, I remember an eighth-grade teacher who took the time to teach us how everyday citizens can bring an initiative measure to voters. (Maybe a relative of Tim Eyman’s was in my class!) The teacher not only explained the process, but we actually did it with a real issue that needed addressing.

Our community — San Jose, Calif. — was in its first big growth push. It was clear we needed a new library in our neighborhood, which served three school campuses. There was some opposition by local neighbors and no elected official would carry the issue forward.

So, time for the initiative. We learned how to have petitions signed. After researching the details surrounding the issue, we made brochures. We had to take the message to at least two service groups explaining the statistics. We created signs to put in our neighborhoods, walked a precinct and were part of a phone tree the night before Election Day.

We were eighth-graders and we realized how powerful our efforts were when the voters agreed to support the library.

Today, there is a Rose Garden Branch library thanks to the incredible effort of a great teacher who gave us an understanding of the political options available in our society.