|
|
|
|
About The
Constitutional Literacy Curriculum |
|
“The liberties of our
country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all
hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have
received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they
purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and
blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an
everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is,
if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a
struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing
men.” – Samuel Adams |
|
The Problem |
The founders of our great nation, Jefferson,
Madison, Adams, and others, understood that the schools’ civic mission is to
foster the qualities necessary for successful government within a
Constitutional Republic. If our leaders are not cognizant of our nation’s
history and the purposes set out for our system of government, they will be
inadequately prepared to face the challenges they will meet and unable to
protect our freedoms.
Many Americans know the
preamble to the United States Constitution and the second paragraph of the
Declaration of Independence. They also may be able to recite at least some
of the enumerated Bill of Rights. But few know these documents are
considered our Founding Documents, documents that carry equal importance in
the creation and execution of our government. Even fewer understand the
principles, history and philosophy surrounding the creation of these
remarkable documents. To be an American is to understand and to have a
reasonable commitment to the ideas in America's founding documents.
It is the mission of BasicsProject.org to make sure that every American is
afforded the opportunity of understanding these remarkable documents, the
covenant between citizen and the uniquely American form of government. We
believe that through a greater understanding of the principles on which our
government was built our citizenry will better understand that e pluribus
unum the idea that we are out of many, one. Through our representative
form of government and through the rule of law created by our Framers,
common ground can be found and solutions can be crafted for each critical
issue that may arise before the people of the United States. We believe that
by understanding these invaluable tools bequeathed to us for our
stewardship, we will successfully maintain and bequeath them, yet again, to
future generations so the great American experiment can continue. |
|
The Solution |
The solution to this
disturbing turn of events is BasicsProject.org’s Constitutional Literacy
Program.
The goal of the Constitutional Literacy Program is ensure that every
American has the opportunity to understand the basic principles on which our
country was founded, thus affording them the wherewithal to understand the
value of freedom, liberty and our Constitutional Republic and the worth of
our American heritage.
This program is being developed using first-source materials employed in the
advanced study of our Constitution including the philosophies championed by
those who influenced our Founding Fathers. It is designed to provide a basic
understanding of the content of our Constitution and a fundamental
comprehension of why our Founders addressed each concern.
The Constitutional Literacy Program, including the Constitutional Literacy
for the Classroom program of study, is being developed for dissemination in
print and on the Internet. |
|
Expected Results |
Because the purpose of
Constitutional Literacy is to introduce the fundamental elements of Civic
and Government Education through the understanding of the US Constitution
using primary-source expository text, not only will the program make great
strides in promoting good citizenship, it will effectively join the fight in
the on-going battle against illiteracy.
The use of Constitutional Literacy in the classroom will encourage a more
civic minded community. And because the program utilizes expository text and
a wide-range of enrichment materials, this unique program supports a more
literate community, as well. It can be argued successfully that civic
competence is probably the most important capacity required for the
maintenance of our Constitutional Republic. Unless the importance of a sound
understanding of Civic Education is recognized as vital to the continuation
of our way of life, and unless this belief is reflected in schools
curriculums, we can no longer rely on the notion that our present governing
structures are sacrosanct.
The successful implementation of the Constitutional Literacy program will
result in adults and students alike being given every opportunity to learn
about the important people, places, and events that influence the government
of the United States. Students will also benefit from being provided the
best venue for learning the important skills of reading and writing
expository text.
Students need teacher direction to: make sense of primary source documents
often written in unfamiliar styles or formats; work with different text
structures used in the nonfiction genre; and write about real people,
places, and events which necessitate citing sources or using facts to back
up statements. The proper utilization of the Constitutional Literacy program
in the classroom will achieve all of these results, advancing not only the
level of literacy, but quality of citizenship; effectively promoting the
neglected subject of Civic Education.
Our ultimate goal for the Constitutional Literacy Program is to achieve a
level of financial support that allows the program to be made accessible to
the American public, as well as to every educational institution throughout
the country, free of any charge in perpetuity. |
|
Evaluation Process |
The
classroom curriculum program will be
continually evaluated in our educational institutions in terms of teacher
satisfaction with the ease of implementation, students’ short and long term
ability to remember the material covered in individual lessons and their
ability to process expository materials at the end of any given year.
The evaluation process will center on test classrooms in three (3)
demographic locations: urban, suburban and rural. This approach will allow
for assessment based on a number of variables including but not limited to:
class size, financial resources and cultural diversity. This approach will
allow the assessment process to weigh less on the individual instructor’s
abilities and more on the program’s performance by evaluating the degrees of
success across the spectrum.
Based on baseline evaluations, it is anticipated that a significant,
positive difference in the class average of those students who have received
instruction in Constitutional Literacy will be indicated.
|
|
