It's been a while... and I've been up to much. We're smack dab in the middle of Constitution land. Do you have a minute? Do you wanna chat Supreme law of the land? I tackle the Constitution in three parts. Here is the first of them. Instead of telling kids about the Constitution through History's eyes, I try to focus on telling history through the eyes of the Constitution. And to truly understand the I gots to start at the beginning. So, we go back.... way back. To the civilizations, historical moments, philosophers, and documents that gave us our Constitution. I start by assigning my kids a timeline assignment, of which they spend (or will spend in the future) *one* hour and a half researching an assigned topic. The topics can be grouped:
This is important, and I will come back to it later. And, my kids don't know these categories exist. The kids take their topic from the assignment and are tasked with researching and reporting back to the class:
On reporting day, I have a timeline taped in the front of the classroom and the kids go up in chronological order to report their findings. They are supposed to hone in on anything that ties back to things like:
If all goes according to plan, the kids should start to see the connective tissue between these concepts and history... and where our founding fathers were dabbling with these theories and experiences to make a wholly new way to govern. (Sometimes it does take some prompting). They see how these thoughts are really an outgrowth of the experience in western Europe leading up to the Age of Colonialism. And what I do is take the best of the topics and copy them onto colored paper... and put them up for a long period of time (or until the test) in the front of the class for reference. We can tie much of this desire to be free of a King as tied back to the technological advances (printing press) and religious schisms and geopolitics that directly preceded this. I mean to say, without the printing press; the spread of knowledge direct religious knowledge due to increased literacy and access to the Bible, and a desire to connect right to the Divine... I am not sure Democracy would have resurrected itself. After all, limited knowledge and skills, as well as a cultural and linguistic divide between the church/state and the common man was a way to stunt personal desire for independence. Religious intolerance (as well as overcrowding in England and the risky glory found in exploration) propelled the forefather's forefathers onto our shores... And here they found that they had freedom! They were six months from direct orders of the King, and that gave them a flexibility unknown in Europe. And hey, they got to mingle with the Iroquois Confederation and see how the so-called 'savages' had more freedom than the sophisticated (hmph!) European! In the absence of a physically present sovereign, they were forced to govern themselves, and *shockingly enough*, Mikey liked it! So much so that when King George tried to recoup costs from the costly French and Indian War by taxation of those this war directly benefited... as well as a usurpation of power by placing in the crown's own governors... our Founding Fathers (hesitantly at first, and then not so much...) revolted! Sure, they found influence in ideals like Ancient Greece (particularly in the Massachusetts Colony, where they could have direct democracy), and in the Roman Republic (but watch out... the concepts of Republicanism, which are echoed in JFK's famous "Ask not..." quote, are totally at odds with our big, sparkly star John Locke (who was an empiricist, and therefore believed that we are all blank slates; have no innate knowledge that predates our sensory-based experiences... and that we should exalt our individual importance therefore as tantamount to the needs of a tyrannical state)... and in the informally compiled British Constitution... which is simplistically referred to as an 'unwritten' document, but sourced back (in part) to the Magna Carta, Petition of Rights, Bill of Rights, and Common Law... They additionally found influence from Hobbes's conception of the social contract (with the King as father outside of the rule of law)to deliver us from a brutal natural state; a refinement from Locke, which resolutely calls for the King to be confined by the rule of law, thus making us all equals in our God-given natural rights. Rousseau (with limited impact due to date of publishing in English and distribution in the colonies) and his call for consent of the governed and a dismantling of monarchies... Voltaire's criticism of a church and state unnecessarily entwined... Machiavelli's dismal view of the effect of power on those in power... and Montesquieu's assertion that the best way to quell that tyrannical hold on power is to break up who makes the laws, who executes them, and who interprets them... And *BAM!* You have our call for independence. We overcorrected with the Confederation, giving far too much power to several states and no ability to reign in each of the state's competing agendas... And what does History give us? Madison. James Madison. our *pApA*. J-Mad. Everyman. Mad respect to this man. What he did was pretty revolutionary. He is a ninja of political theory... and the main, motivating factor that got this man out of bed in the morning was tyranny. Unglorious tyranny. He gets a lot of flack because he seems wishy-washy in his about face from sweeping powers to a central government (NO! How uncouth for the son of a nation who just escaped the long arm of the King) to arguing for more state sovereignty, but let's talk Jimmy a minute.
As I said, he's totally afraid that the government, any government, really... will become a tyrant. So he rolls into the Constitutional Convention with an outline of how things out to be... and it's quite beautiful. If we need a strong player to keep factions out (yes, the states under the articles WERE factions, and stinking up the joint)... we'll have something that is NOT a confederacy. So he compromises between unitary and Confederate systems... FEDERALISM. He let's the states keep their powers, BUT keeps some key tricks in the hands of the fed. What, you ask? Look at Article 1 Section 8. They're there. (more to follow on that). But instead of rewriting (plagiarizing) the English Bill of Rights... which he accuses of being meaningless in front of a motivated tyrant... he takes those scary powers and shatters it a part (separation of powers) and makes the branches and their separate ambitions dependent upon each other (checks and balances). The beauty is to read the Constitution like the Bill of Rights doesn't exist, and every precious word in every precious clause is some kind of a barrier or obstruction to tyrants. I mean, why else would he define the only constitutional crime (treason) to such an extent if not to limit what the government can arbitrarily call tyranny? The Bill of Rights? An afterthought, a compromise.. and further limiting of the government... giving its citizens and subject states more authority in the face of the elastic clause & supremacy clause. As an outro on this monster of a post... I do share these deep ramblings with my kids. We go over the Constitution and point out much of this FEAR and FINITE LIMITATIONS and almost insurmountable barriers to the majority getting their way... and we examine all aspects general... things like the denial of powers in 10th section of article 1... the guarantee to the states in the fourth article... the arduous process of amending the Constitution (to prevent willy-nilly changes) set up in the second clause of the sixth article. FYI. All this listed above is three blocks of class time... or 4 and a half hours total. HA! And with that, I take a breath, a bow, and I bid you adieu. More in the next post. PS: Some great books on this topic:
And of course, I would dabble in a little Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Machiavelli, and Paine... just for fun. Why not?
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Jen's bookshelf: nerdcation
I want to start by thanking Mr. Snowden and Mr. Greenwald for their uncompromising dedication to giving the NSA violations air time and transparency.
I wanted to share some of the most important things I have learned from this book bef...
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nerdcation
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nerdcation and to-read
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nerdcation and to-read
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nerdcation and to-read
AuthorI lovgov. LOVE IT! I love teaching government, learning about it, debating, discussing, asking questions about government. And not the standard boiler plate questions, but the hard ones that are NOT in the books. Archives
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