Sixth Grade Assignment: Destroy the Bill of Rights

A) I like that the assignment (although probably not by design) would spark at least the concept that citizens currently have rights. That's something....

B) I don't like the platform one bit. The requirement to 'prune off' 2 amendments? I suppose you could say it would force debate and actual thought about the value of each amendment...but yeah, Common Core once again disappoints (big surprise!)

I have a K, 6th and 9th grader. I watch their schoolwork like a hawk. My 9th grader stumps his teachers because he is way more informed ;D

Thanks ATS!

WWJFKD
reply to post by Aazadan

 

I would like to believe that there is some higher learning being done here, but I just don't buy it. Telling my nephew that "The government gives you your rights" was not followed by some discussion about how false that statement is. The misinterpretation on the 2nd amendment was not later explained as incorrect and I do not believe that this is some ruse to get 6th graders to understand the value of the Bill of Rights. I smell indoctrination and I would sooner err on the side of caution then wait for something profound to come out of this education system. I judge a tree by its fruit, and this trees fruit stinks to high heaven.

I don't deny that indoctrination happens at some schools, but it also happens in some homes. Teachers have certain subjects they have to cover but the individual assignments are often left up to the teachers and as is the case with anything political a teachers bias will come through.

I think back to my 11th grade US Government class back in 1999. My teacher was a decent guy but he was a deeply entrenched Republican. He would tell us routinely to never vote for a Democrat and point to scandals like the then recent Clinton impeachment as a reason why. Discussion of things like the Bill of Rights would usually follow the Republican talking points. I won't say this was bad, but it was certainly biased. In contrast my girlfriend at the time was a staunch Democrat because her parents were, and simply towed the party line. I've kept up with her over the years and to this day she has the viewpoint democrat backed=good, republican backed=bad and she got it from her parents, never questioning or willing to question the reasons. That's two examples of indoctrination that are opposite of what people typically imagine. It happens all the time.

The more I think about this assignment, the more it feels aimed at kids who are too young. A year or two ago I took a constitutional law course for fun. I can't say I actually learned anything from it but that wasn't my goal in taking the class. I simply wanted to debate the merits of different articles in the constitution with other people. An assignment like this would have been perfect for that class.

reply to post by Aazadan


And I can certainly appreciate good debate among adults, but I agree - 6th graders? How impressionable is a mind at this stage of its development?

These people better realize the level of restraint we're showing... Our forefathers would have been reloading by now!

Click Click BOOM!

WWJFKD
reply to post by Aazadan

 

And I can certainly appreciate good debate among adults, but I agree - 6th graders? How impressionable is a mind at this stage of its development?

To me it's not a matter of how impressionable they are but how much of their freedoms they've experienced. A 6th grader has virtually no rights. They haven't begun to work, parents look over everything they do so they have no concept of privacy or protection from search and seizure, most don't own guns or are even able to grasp their importance in freedom, they aren't having things published (and most have no interest in news), and so on. I still like the assignment but 6th graders don't have the life experiences to understand the freedoms in the constitution.

reply to post by Agent008


I think its pretty clear the founders (or as FEMA calls them - The Original terrorists) would have gone to war a hundred times over. I like in the new Fox show Sleepy Hollow - Icabod remarks on the 10 percent tax on his sandwich and says "We went to war over 2 percent".

Is it restraint, Is it fear, Is it apathy or is it preoccupation. What separates us from our ancestors? Misinformation, indoctrination. Or do we still believe that we have some power at the ballot box. If we could just get our guy elected things would be so much better. I submit we are well passed the point of a diplomatic solution and we are at a place that Kennedy warned of " When you take away the peoples right for peaceful redress of grievances. all you leave them with is violent revolution" as unsavory as that might sound.

reply to post by WWJFKD


It would seem to me that they themselves can't come up with any valid ideas for doing this so now they are getting sample ideas from everyone they can force to think about this so they can possibly come up with an idea that will work, the people working for the government are not smart enough to come up with an idea that works so they are hoping someone else will give them ideas that they can use

When I was in high school (about 6 or 7 years ago) I had an assignment that was almost the opposite of this one - we were divided into groups of 2 or 3, and the teacher asked us to imagine that our rights were being taken away but we were able to keep two of them. We had to discuss and decide on which ones we'd want to keep and why we'd want to keep them.

My friend and I chose the right to keep and bear arms as one, I don't remember what the other one was.

The purpose of the assignment was to demonstrate how important our rights are, and it was when I really started to realize just how important it was. After all, no one could just pick two at random, we had to share our reasoning behind it which inevitably led to us trying to imagine what life would be like without those rights being enforced. I don't know if that's what the teacher was going for, but I don't doubt it. He was a good teacher.

IkNOwSTuff
Its a thought exercise for children for cripes sake!!!!!!!

they could have picked any number of things to use for a simple thought exercise.....the fact that they chose the bill of rights is very telling...

the point of the exercise is start conditioning them to believe that their natural rights are not absolute, and that government has the ability, authority, and right to take them away, or in any other way, restrict one from exercising said rights...

it's to reinforce the idea the the government is almighty, and that we the people answer to it....

pstrron
The government might be at an impasse on how to go about reducing the Bill of Rights, thus it behooves them to ask those who would see no problem in such an exercise and possibly gain an answer to their dilemma. It reminds me of the phrase "out of the mouth of babes".

why is there an impasse? why is there a need to reduce the bill of rights?

why would anyone believe we need LESS rights, and LESS protections?

Daedalus

pstrron
The government might be at an impasse on how to go about reducing the Bill of Rights, thus it behooves them to ask those who would see no problem in such an exercise and possibly gain an answer to their dilemma. It reminds me of the phrase "out of the mouth of babes".

why is there an impasse? why is there a need to reduce the bill of rights?

why would anyone believe we need LESS rights, and LESS protections?

Some people do. The left routinely goes after gun rights, the right routinely goes after due process. Both are going after search and seizure (especially of electronic communications). The people that actually believe in all 10 of those protections, much less think we need even more are few and far between.

A lot of people simply disagree with blanket protections and would rather defer those protections to authorities who obviously never mess up and have only our best interests at heart because rights inevitably also mean protecting criminals.

I'M JUMPING RIGHT IN AND NOT READING THE POSTS AFTER AND BELOW THE OP's OPENING TOPIC.....

Remember this as our children are bombarded with NWO horse crap, we Baby Boomers hold the most voting power and should intervene when such blatent disregard and threat exist to out Bill of Rights and Constitution. It may be the best legacy you leave for your children as the Slime in government try to subvert our Freedoms guaranteed by both these Documents

Aazadan

Daedalus

pstrron
The government might be at an impasse on how to go about reducing the Bill of Rights, thus it behooves them to ask those who would see no problem in such an exercise and possibly gain an answer to their dilemma. It reminds me of the phrase "out of the mouth of babes".

why is there an impasse? why is there a need to reduce the bill of rights?

why would anyone believe we need LESS rights, and LESS protections?

Some people do. The left routinely goes after gun rights, the right routinely goes after due process. Both are going after search and seizure (especially of electronic communications). The people that actually believe in all 10 of those protections, much less think we need even more are few and far between.

A lot of people simply disagree with blanket protections and would rather defer those protections to authorities who obviously never mess up and have only our best interests at heart because rights inevitably also mean protecting criminals.

i honestly can't tell if you're being serious, or if your post is so completely saturated with sarcasm, that it mimics seriousness...

if you're serious, i feel sorry for you. if you're sarcastic...well...lol

I'm completely serious. Rights mean, what minimum protections are we willing to give to the worst of our society? No one needs rights when the person or subject is popular. They're needed when the person is unpopular for whatever reason. Many people don't like supporting the unpopular. I'm not one of those, but that's how many think and why they're ok with weakening the constitution.

There is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that there are many people out there who wish to basically brainwash modern children with just plain traitorous ideas regarding the US government, it's Constitution, and other aspects contained within. Like you mentioned, a teacher actually said that the government GIVES people their rights? What? How can people like that even teach our children, since they are so ignorant? The government derives its powers from the consent of the governed. It is right there in the Declaration of Independence itself.

This country was established and people were given certain inalienable rights for a very good reason. To suggest that the Bill of Rights is outdated is just plain moronic to say the least. I think that most people who believe this are referring explicitly to the 2nd amendment, and these people, in my opinion, are the saddest and most misinformed of all. I am usually democratic in my political leanings, because generally I cannot support the right, who support the accumulation of wealth by those who are already wealthy, and who use their power and influence to further corrupt the balance of economic power; but in this particular case, that of the 2nd amendment, our Founding Fathers made in abundantly clear as to WHY we MUST have a right to bear arms.

It is not just "because." It is NOT for personal protection from intruders or the like, although it is for protection in a way. We have a right to bear arms simply because that is the ONLY way we can uphold our rights when the government gets too big and decides it wants to take them away. And so many people think that cannot happen, but look around you. I mean the government is SHUTDOWN for God's sake. There has been talk of taking away your rights. The government ALREADY HAS taken away your right to privacy, WITHOUT due process, and for no reason other than they feel they have a right to do whatever they want. And this is NOT a democrat or republican thing.

Many on the right want to blame Obama, but this all started with Bush. I am sick of hearing about how Obama ruined this country. It is a load of crap, plain and simple. These people want to talk about public debt? Do I need to remind you what the state of economic affairs was in this country when Clinton, a democrat, left office? And then what they were like when Bush left office? Geez, the right either has a very short memory, or a very SELECTIVE one. Oh, I forgot. They don't need a memory...They are told what to think via Fox News.

Aazadan
I'm completely serious. Rights mean, what minimum protections are we willing to give to the worst of our society? No one needs rights when the person or subject is popular. They're needed when the person is unpopular for whatever reason. Many people don't like supporting the unpopular. I'm not one of those, but that's how many think and why they're ok with weakening the constitution.

edit on 10-10-2013 by Aazadan because: (no reason given)

and this is why i had a bit of confusion....what, exactly, is your position?

are you for, or against modification of the bill of rights?

Daedalus

Aazadan
I'm completely serious. Rights mean, what minimum protections are we willing to give to the worst of our society? No one needs rights when the person or subject is popular. They're needed when the person is unpopular for whatever reason. Many people don't like supporting the unpopular. I'm not one of those, but that's how many think and why they're ok with weakening the constitution.

edit on 10-10-2013 by Aazadan because: (no reason given)

and this is why i had a bit of confusion....what, exactly, is your position?

are you for, or against modification of the bill of rights?

I'm for modification, but only to add rights not to remove them. Most notably, I think we need an amendment that has to do with passive data collection on people. It's something that has only really become possible due to technology and has some really scary applications when enough data is collected.

Aazadan
I'm for modification, but only to add rights not to remove them. Most notably, I think we need an amendment that has to do with passive data collection on people. It's something that has only really become possible due to technology and has some really scary applications when enough data is collected.

edit on 11-10-2013 by Aazadan because: (no reason given)

i tend to believe that things like that are already covered by the 4th amendment..."persons, houses, papers, and effects"

letters sent by post, emails, text messages, and telephonic comminucations are personal correspondence, which is part of what is supposed to be covered by the 4th..

the government uses the same idiotic argument to violate the 4th, that they do to violate the 2nd...namely "the founders never envisioned (insert technology here)"...they think because they presume to speak to the founders lack of forward-thinking, that this somehow gives them some sort of legal basis to do as they please...

that's the problem when you appoint people to a lifetime position, where a large part of their job is to "interpret" the constitution, and decide what your rights are....whoever has the most money, or the most dirt on you, gets to decide what the interpretation is...

I'm not talking about electronic communications between people. I'm talking about things like building psychological profiles based on the brands people buy, data mining public information like facebook, and so on, or cameras that read license plates and track peoples driving habits flagging them as a potential criminal if those habits suddenly change.

The Fourth (though they're just ignoring it) prevents them from seizing our documents but it doesn't stop them from passively watching and listening. Passive data collection to this scale wasn't doable until relatively recently and is just as insidious and just as much a threat to liberty as violating any of the other amendments but doesn't actually fall under any of the others.

Basically, it's collection of data we make public just by existing. The government has decided that because that data is public information they have a right to collect it, use it, and compile massive profiles on everyone. I see that practice as unacceptable.

reply to post by Aazadan


we are in agreement that it is unacceptable.