should not be talked about on the golf course. Thursday I went out with the Gaggle and was paired in the cart with a guy who was retired navy. As we were teeing off the other three guys in the foursome for some unexplained reason decided to vent about our senior senator and how they agreed with Arizona's immigration law. It didn't help matters that I was playing a rather lousy round of golf, but the idiot I was driving with naturally asked what I had done for a living and when I told him I had been a teacher he went off on a tirade about why the schools didn't teach the Constitution anymore. That was the last straw. I answered, "Why should we when Bush called it 'useless scrap of paper' and proceeded to take us into two needless wars, begin using Bills of Attainder and abolished Habeas Corpus."
He responded by saying that maybe we needed to avoid that subject.
No shit Sherlock!
BTW: I taught World History and the major theme was the rise of Democracy, from ancient Athens, The Roman Republic, The Enlightenment, English Civil War and the evolution of Parliamentary Democracy in England. In U.S. History I spent three weeks every first semester going over the actual constitution and the Bill of Rights with the rest of the year, as they came up, discussing the other ammendments focusing heavily on the 13th, 14th and 15th right after the Civil War. In Law class they got a double dose under Constitutional law as we covered numerous Supreme Court cases and I had them write a law, debate it and try to get it passed in a mock legislature, we did mock trials and mock appeals. I sponsored at two schools the YMCA Youth and Government club where the students conducted a model legislature in the Round House in Santa Fe over a weekend every year. They had to write a bill and be on committees to debate bills that students from all over the state submitted. There was also a Forum where instead of a bill they wrote research paper on the specific topic and then discussed it within the group to prepare a formal resolution to the legislature. There was a model Supreme Court as well. It was amazing every year watching the students in action as they learned the ins and outs of our government. Don't fuss at me about not teaching the Constitution. It's our political leaders who need a refresher course in Civics, not the schools.
Blood pressure much lower now. Off to a tournament and hoping to have a much better round of golf.
2 comments:
!!!
your narrative of your golf experience was worth a laugh!... and your staunch defense of public education heart-warming!
yeah - i'm pretty sure most students come out of public school having studied the Constitution in some depth... somehow by the time they make it into Congress or the Executive, they've forgotten it all.
If they can't see it working in real life it matters little. And it seems no matter who gets elected they ignore it.
Post a Comment