* 4 September 2010, an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale rocks Canterbury causing widespread damage to buildings and infrastructure. * 19 November 2010, 29 miners and contractors are killed in an explosion at the Pike river mine on the West Coast. * 22 February 2011, 182 die and thousands more are injured or made homeless in a 6.3 earthquake centred closer to the city of Christchurch. * 13 June 2011, another 6.3 quake in Christchurch, amid the 7,000+ aftershocks, further damages an already vulnerable city and surroundings. In a year of unprecedented events in New Zealand's history, in which I was to lose people close to me and in which I saw firsthand the toll taken on my hometown community of Greymouth and my current place of residence, Christchurch, I cannot reflect on this year in curriculum without relating it to those events. As I write this, the clean-up of the oil spill following the Rena's grounding off Tauranga is also underway-another example to support the points I will make. In this editorial I would like to tie together notions of crisis, curriculum and citizenship. In a previous Curriculum Matters editorial, I presented a broad definition of curriculum (Mutch, 2009). This explored curriculum from society's aspirations, through official documents, to teachers' interpretations and students' responses. In the 2011 editorial, I will link the way in which the official curriculum has interpreted society's aspirations and how the responses to the disasters of the past year demonstrate particular ways in which New Zealanders act as citizens when faced with major crises. First, what are society's aspirations, as presented in the formal curriculum for schools? The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 8) states that the vision is for young people: * who will be creative, energetic, and enterprising * who will seize the opportunities offered by new knowledge and technologies to secure a sustainable social, cultural, economic, and environmental future for our country * who will work to create an Aotearoa New Zealand in which Maori and Pakeha recognise each other as full Treaty partners, and in which all cultures are valued for the contributions they bring * who, in their school years, will continue to develop the values, knowledge, and competencies that will enable them to live full and satisfying lives * who will be confident, connected, actively involved, and lifelong learners. If we compare these aspirations to definitions of citizenship, we find many similarities. Rather than a narrow term related only to patriotism or nationhood, the literature provides definitions of citizenship that are more fluid and contested. As Rob Gilbert explains (1996, p. 108): Some definitions emphasise the nation state as an entity to which people should give allegiance and loyalty. Other definitions emphasise individual rights or a sense of shared loyalty. Others focus on participation in government. John Cogan and Ray Derricott (1998) view citizenship as a set of multidimensional characteristics which are necessary for young people to take their place in the world of the future. These are around co-operation, participation and environmental responsibility but also the capacity to think in critical and systemic ways. Other characteristics include understanding, accepting and tolerating cultural differences, resolving conflict in a nonviolent manner and defending human rights. What is the role of curriculum in this preparation of young people for citizenship of the future? David Kerr (2000) views the role of education for citizenship, through curriculum and pedagogy, as broad and encompassing. Citizenship education is not, therefore, limited to particular subject areas or places in the timetable but is part of formal and informal, in-school and out-of-school learning. In their study of school programmes, Westheimer and Kahne (2004) found three conceptions of the good citizen underpinned approaches to education for citizenship--personally responsible, participatory and justice-oriented. …