Those of you at the second week of James Madison and Constitutional Citizenship at Montpelier may have heard about my school and our work with Professor Harris. Our charter high school was created by a group of parents in 1998 with a mission to teach citizenship. From the beginning we tried to fulfill this mission [...]
Posts from ‘July, 2008’
Heroes
What is a hero? What is an American hero? These were questions raised at a recent workshop at James Madison’s Montpelier http://www.montpelier.org/ . On display in the lobby of one of the buildings, there is a bust of “Jemmy” more than a bit out of proportion to his actual (slight) dimensions. However, artists sometimes exaggerate in [...]
New post on my site
Any of you who are mathematically or Federalistically inclined are welcome to check out my latest post on my personal blog. I’m in a two-week math school, and as I’ve said previously, Federalism is rapidly becoming the lens through which I view the world! puck Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Share [...]
Are We One Yet?
I nearly titled this post, “Seth’s People of Circles.” His extension of Will’s boxes included adding all kinds of little circles to the red box indicating the many different groups present in the American people. Religious groups, community organizations, and even some families may earnestly assert a covenant they’ve made and hold above that of [...]
"Rationally Ignorant" for U.S. Senate
I am at an FTE seminar and as I was doing one of the readings I found something that I thought supported my argument that we should be return the way U.S. senators are elected to having the State Assemblies elect the state’s U.S. senators. The book ‘The Economics of Public Policies’ says, ” many [...]
Constitutional Teaching: To Form a More Perfect Union
A post during the first session at Montpelier initiated this series of inviting us to think about our role as teachers and officers of the U.S. Constitution. The task was to discuss each goal of the Constitution in our own terms and share how we support these goals in our work as teachers. For this [...]
Wall-E: Perfectly Constituted Disorder
I saw the most frightening childrens’ movie this weekend, Pixar’s “Wall-E.” The child in the row behind me squealed with delight over every adorable character. She punctuated each screen debut with the character’s name. She faithfully announced Wall-E and Eve each time, convinced we were as excited as she was. She had no idea I [...]
Essence of an Anti-Federalist
On the same note as the essence of a federalist, What is the essence of an anti-federalist? –Keith J Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Share on Linkedin share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Tweet about it Bookmark in Browser Tell a friend
Essence of a Federalist
I have what at first seems to be a simple question, until you begin to try and answer it: What is the essence of a federalist? –Keith J Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Share on Linkedin share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Tweet about it Bookmark in Browser Tell [...]
On Theory, Poetry, and the American Constitution
I think to appreciate or even tolerate this post you have to accept at face value Will Harris’s assertion that Americans “live in a theory.” The theory is derived from the Constitution and includes such central organizing ideas as innovation, wholeness, inquiry, optimism, order, deliberation, and covenant to name a small and perhaps unrepresentative subset. [...]
