Humanities

What if We Took Our rights for Granted?

Although I was unable to embed the actual video here since YouTube thought it wasn't a video, here is the link to it on YouTube:           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFD-bnjGDfc

This Video was inspired by our first amendment and
what would happen if our First Amendment was taken
from us.

Educating Students about the Constitution

CJ Harrison

The First Amendment has forever been part of the United States history and will continue to be part of our future. The First Amendment is encased by the Constitution which makes up the amendments. This makes schools in the United States eligible for teaching students about the first amendment. Learning about our Constitution and the amendments that follow it is important for students to get to know and understand. This is because when students graduate high school and move out of the house, challenges such as first amendment rights are really going to matter in their everyday lives. Also, the political debate and topics the president discusses are going to start affecting students personally where parents used to take care of it all. This is the reason why the Constitution is important to learn in high school.

            Throughout the semester, learning about the first amendment was the main task that was focused on, students completed assignments in order to enhance their memory and be willing to engage in political arguments. After learning all about Constitutional rights, I would have to say my favorite piece of content that we covered was the PATRIOT Act. Although this topic revolved around the 9/11 attacks as well as watching everything happening that day within the news broadcasting companies, I found my focus to be aimed on how capable our country is against these kinds of attacks. I managed to do some research outside of class on how our country uses various techniques such as tapping into our mobile devices to listen in on conversations. This would cause the NSA to find suspicious wording and possibly label you as a “terrorist.” In their eyes, the might potentially see this as a threat to American people or America itself. Though I could get into a lot of detail about this topic, I would indeed say that the PATRIOT Act is/was one of my favorite subjects to learn about because of the question, how protected are we? Overall, it’s a very complex topic when looking at it from a government’s point of view.

            In the topic of the first amendment, subjects such as 9/11 and first amendment rights within a topic we love/enjoy were part of what was actually learned on a personal level. Sure our government shut down, and my generation may have the hardest time getting jobs and being able to provide for ourselves, but what I can do is know my Constitutional rights. This caused me to grow as a student in learning what life has in store and how I can be more educationally suited for it, I have learned through multiple assignments or projects I've pursued. One of these projects is the video project where my group and I had to make a story line revolving our first amendment. This gave students a lot of thinking room and options that we could do. Coming up with several ideas, my partners and I knew that it was inevitable how important our first amendment rights actually are. Take a moment to think about it, sure, schools can teach students about anything they want, but there really is no actual ability to say that students don’t have the experience they need. This is why the video I made captures that idea of what the world would be like without the first amendment. It captures the idea of what happens when the government no longer exists and no one is left to lead the nation. This is why having projects such as this one is important to our society today because it teaches young adults or students how the society that surrounds us is not educated to the point to know what rights are given to them and how these rights can be used. Overall, being educated about the first amendment and using it in a public sense is important to the society, we as American citizens, live in and therefore shape how each individual interacts with each other.

How is education for students today valuable to their future? Maybe if you could figure out what needs to happen in schools, opposed to what may or may not already happen is important to not only this generation, but to future generations and how grandchildren of this age will mature and learn in their own ways. If you have a teacher that is only there for the money and doesn't care about teaching, the students are going to fall in their knowledge of what actually happens within that subject. This is why being a student is extremely important and the teaching styles of the teachers within the school students attend is a big part of their education. Within my education, questions have been brought up and in order to pass the class, research is required in order to gain knowledge about the topic being covered. If given the chance, questions that I would pursue further within the senior year of high school would be the question or statement of how our Bill of Rights is used and how common citizens are mis-informed about them. Within researching this topic, subject such as being able to go out into the community and ask individuals about the bill of rights and how individuals can give a brief explanation of what the Bills are used for. Though there are many questions that could be covered within the last semester of class, focusing on the Bill of Rights is important as well as the first amendment and how average American citizens cannot tell you much about either of them.

What is it about our Constitution that no one really pays attention to? Is it our education on the topic? Is it the lack of interest? Or is it simply because no one really cares because on a day to day basis, we don’t usually have to repeatedly state our amendments and rights? Maybe it is because the fact that no one needs this information on a day to day basis. But if so, that is what a lawyer is for right? See, this is the reason why our educators and learners need to grasp. Society as we now it cannot even tell you about the Constitution, though some may, but most fail to. Listen, if the people want to get anywhere, then start focusing on the government and politics all throughout school, because get this, if every student was educated on the government and all that comes with it, Petitioning would get us somewhere. Assembling would be more common. The Press would be more active, and Religion, well, I assume you all know the answer to that.