I'm no pawn. Especially not to all of those Heady Lamar's and govs. (see comment for pawn reference)...
First: I have created a new blog which will be used for my AP Psychology classes. I will link to it on this blog--I used myspace last year, but I have since removed myself from that crack wagon.
Second: I thought more about my democratic-republic idea while proctoring for a test this morning. First day we will write and ratify our class constitution. I will outline a couple of areas. We will address class rules and regulations and I will allow the students some say so on the issues--of course I will be the chair of the convention and they know nothing about rules of order so I will dictate a lot of the policies:)
I want to establish a system of justice in the class. Upon violating a rule, the student will be served with a subpoena. They can plead not guilty and hire a lawyer from the class and we will conduct a trial with a jury of his/her peers... maybe not for each offense, we'll see...
We will establish the separation of powers. I am the Executive. I have veto power. If they want to override my veto it will take 2/3 of the class. We will decide on the amendment process of our constitution and the ratification process. Election periods will be determined. My thought is that there will be 2 class senators serving 2 week terms and 5 class reps. serving 1 week terms. I'll let the class decide on term limits.
A couple of safeguards: As the Executive I will be able to invoke the War Powers Act and suspend the powers of Congress up to 10-15 days at a time. Furthermore, upon being absent it will be written into the Constitution that the substitute is absolute monarch.
I understand the testing game. I don't think that I will be sacrificing content for interest. I think that if I can make this work, then the interest/ownership of the class will lead to higher thinking about the content and perhaps even better scores. I think that factions will emerge in the class that will want to succeed and therefore my veto power over laziness and apathy will be sustained. Still thinking...
dt
1 comment:
Easy boy, you're not the only pawn. The main obstacle I see is a lack of basic knowledge about the concepts you're talking about starting off with. Tosh doesn't know what the constitution is. It will take a while to get it off the ground having to explain what everything means and how it works and how it applies to an EOC. However, the lessons should stick better because of the application. I'm just playing devil's advocate though as I assume you would have it.
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