There are perennial debates in civic education regarding the definition, rights and responsibilities of citizenship while failing to address the issue of civic dispositions. Underpinning the discourse is a consensus that a democracy can only function when citizens are knowledgeable of and adept at exercising their rights (Weissberg, 2001). Yet the aptitudes and dispositions required of citizens in order to be active participants in civic life presents another dilemma for educators implementing a civic education regimen meant to stimulate sustained student interest in politics and society. By binding acts of dissent to a patriotic outlook, patriotism is defined according to more nuanced criteria and transcends national apologetics, triumphalism, and conflation between obedience and allegiance. By casting dissent as a manifestation of a patriotic framework, citizens can conduct their civic affairs unencumbered by political passivity, indiscriminate veneration for country, and a superficial sense of national infallibility. As such dissent is not abnegation, indignant nonconformity, uncouth activism or dangerous subversion. Civic education should be constructed around imbuing the classroom with an awareness of what the American ethos entails, how the country has struggled to achieve its social and political aims, and how dissent is a form of sociopolitical diagnostics to ensure the country acts in accordance to this foundational set of principles.