Senior Humanities: Government and Economics
Hello and welcome to the page of my senior Humanities class. I'm very excited for Humanities this year as we are going to be studying the workings of our country in far more detail than I ever have before. My teacher this year is Matt Hughes, who comes from a wide background of teaching experiences. I will update this page as our year continues. Thanks for visiting!
College Essay Boot Camp
Easily the most valuable use of time we have been allotted for our college applications, we were given two weeks in Humanities to write and refine our essays. This process involved getting into groups, peer editing, meeting with out teachers and, of course, writing. After, we were asked to create a profile page with a student picture, essay prompt, and list of colleges we were applying to. You can see the product of my work below.
Personal Profile
College Essay
Personal Profile
College Essay
Stepping into Society: Your Rights and the First Amendment
The entirety of this project was spent focusing on our first amendment rights, both in school and out of school. After learning about these rights, we split up into groups of 1-5 students and created videos meant to explain our first amendment rights to others. The area of focus that mu group chose was our constitutional rights in schools as they are defines by the Tinker, Hazelwood, and Fraser standards. We were then asked to complete an essay on the project which may be found below the video. Below that, you may also find our blogs which were used to expand our knowledge of the content that we learned in class.
“Apathy: the feeling of not having much emotion or interest,” (Merriam-Webster.) Before reaching high school, I had reached a certain amount of apathy over the Constitution, knowing that the document is important, but failing to see why. The Constitution may have been relevant once, but how much did it really play into our everyday lives? Now that I have completed this project, I see all too clearly just how important the First Amendment is and how we utilize our constitutional rights every single day. Being informed about the Constitution will be paramount as I continue to progress into society. Although it can be argued that we are only students, it is our duty as rising citizens in the United States of America to become informed about the document on which our nation was founded and about the many ways in which that document separates us from so many other countries.
The relevance of this content in the lives of students is one of the many reasons that they must be taught early of their First Amendment rights. All of the information I have gathered over the course of this project has the ability to guide me forward in the future. However, the most relevant content we studied was the manner in which students have been given modifications to their freedom of speech through the Tinker, Hazelwood, and Fraser standards. Over the course of this project, I learned that students did not always have access to the rights granted by the First Amendment until the court ruling in the Tinker v. Des Moines case in 1969: “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate” (Cornell law.) However, through other court rulings such as Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier and Fraser v. Bethel, there have been restrictions imposed upon students' freedom of speech that they must be aware of. Knowing those limitations allows students to exercise their opinions appropriately. Furthermore, by knowing the boundaries, students can also determine whether or not those boundaries need to be challenged to promote the First Amendment and then proceed to do so in an educated manner.
It can never be too early to impress upon our children the importance of the Constitution. While it is important for students to understand their boundaries within the school environment, it is far more important for them to understand their rights in regular society because ultimately, their education prepares them to spend the rest of their lives in society. Without knowing our rights, we are unable to distinguish those times when they are being infringed from those when they are not. Those who do understand their constitutional rights are automatically given a certain amount of power over those who do not, which creates an imbalance in the system. This imbalance has yet to overturn our society, but in future years, if the importance of the Constitution is forgotten, this problem has the potential to escalate quickly.
Currently, it is not impossible to live as a citizen of the United States without knowing your First Amendment rights; this was clear to see in the video created by Shannon's group, in which a number of people were interviewed about how well they knew the Constitution. Even the attorneys interviewed only knew three rights (Etz et al.) However, now that I have completed this project, I find that I understand our protections as they are outlined in the Bill of Rights and the types of speech that are protected under the broad term of “free speech.” I understand what I am allowed to say and to in school under the Constitution and how to express my ideas without fear of unconsciously violating those restrictions. Using this information, I have the ability to analyze the various conflicts that have come up within our country on a constitutional level and derive with far more clarity an educated opinion. This is something that I was unable to do before, yet is a vital tool in the governance of our nation.
We must encourage younger generations not only to take interest in the document that drives our government, but to rejoice in all of the liberty that it grants them. Without knowledge of the First Amendment, I would not be able to tell when my rights were or were not being violated. I would be unable to determine whether or not the claims that others will continue to make are accurate, and this inability to do so would greatly hinder my ability to make educated decisions about my government or my role within society.
The relevance of this content in the lives of students is one of the many reasons that they must be taught early of their First Amendment rights. All of the information I have gathered over the course of this project has the ability to guide me forward in the future. However, the most relevant content we studied was the manner in which students have been given modifications to their freedom of speech through the Tinker, Hazelwood, and Fraser standards. Over the course of this project, I learned that students did not always have access to the rights granted by the First Amendment until the court ruling in the Tinker v. Des Moines case in 1969: “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate” (Cornell law.) However, through other court rulings such as Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier and Fraser v. Bethel, there have been restrictions imposed upon students' freedom of speech that they must be aware of. Knowing those limitations allows students to exercise their opinions appropriately. Furthermore, by knowing the boundaries, students can also determine whether or not those boundaries need to be challenged to promote the First Amendment and then proceed to do so in an educated manner.
It can never be too early to impress upon our children the importance of the Constitution. While it is important for students to understand their boundaries within the school environment, it is far more important for them to understand their rights in regular society because ultimately, their education prepares them to spend the rest of their lives in society. Without knowing our rights, we are unable to distinguish those times when they are being infringed from those when they are not. Those who do understand their constitutional rights are automatically given a certain amount of power over those who do not, which creates an imbalance in the system. This imbalance has yet to overturn our society, but in future years, if the importance of the Constitution is forgotten, this problem has the potential to escalate quickly.
Currently, it is not impossible to live as a citizen of the United States without knowing your First Amendment rights; this was clear to see in the video created by Shannon's group, in which a number of people were interviewed about how well they knew the Constitution. Even the attorneys interviewed only knew three rights (Etz et al.) However, now that I have completed this project, I find that I understand our protections as they are outlined in the Bill of Rights and the types of speech that are protected under the broad term of “free speech.” I understand what I am allowed to say and to in school under the Constitution and how to express my ideas without fear of unconsciously violating those restrictions. Using this information, I have the ability to analyze the various conflicts that have come up within our country on a constitutional level and derive with far more clarity an educated opinion. This is something that I was unable to do before, yet is a vital tool in the governance of our nation.
We must encourage younger generations not only to take interest in the document that drives our government, but to rejoice in all of the liberty that it grants them. Without knowledge of the First Amendment, I would not be able to tell when my rights were or were not being violated. I would be unable to determine whether or not the claims that others will continue to make are accurate, and this inability to do so would greatly hinder my ability to make educated decisions about my government or my role within society.
In Addition...
This project has been very interesting for me, and I have really enjoyed learning about my Constitutional rights. In addition to the video and essay above, we were also required to write blogs over the course of the project which you can find here.