We’ve passed a mile marker… 100 posts on Politicolor. This site represents a lot of heavy thinking from within the classroom as well as from the world writ large. The richness of ideas presented here speaks to the communities of scholars created for brief moments in either Los Angeles or Orange, Virginia. While those events inevitably reach a conclusion, the surplus of mind lingers to provoke each of us to imagine what it means to be a teacher and a citizen who takes seriously our commitment to a larger constitutional order.
Sharing ideas powered those offline communities as much as it fuels discussions here. We hope you’ll find a way to share your ideas in the next 100 posts. Tech guru Chris Brogan recently contemplated how sharing matters online. He organized his ideas around two propositions… sharing moves information more effectively and adds value to the larger tapestry. A guru from another era suggested freedom itself requires us to exercise our minds so they venture abroad and contemplate what lies beyond. Whether you take your cues from the world of tech or the dream of Scipio, here are some of our top posts for thinking richly, broadly and creatively.
- Hobbes21 carried colored boxes into the classroom with My Serial of Boxes (Part 1), (Part 2) and (Part 3). We also tried our best to share Kevin’s presentation on constitutional thinking and teaching from the 2008 National Academy.
- After the 2008 NEH Institute at Montpelier, Larry saw Federalist thinking in poetry, On Theory, Poetry and the American Constitution.
- Contemplate what it might mean to organize your school with a constitutional understanding through Shayne’s post, A School Based on Constitutional Citizenship. Stepwinder and Hobbes21 contemplated the model for A Federalist Education with guidance from Einstein’s biography.
- Politicolor was talking about Rube Goldberg machines before an OK-Go video challenged all the cool kids to make their own. It was a question about the American People and an Incredible Machine.
- When Laura left the NEH Institute at Montpelier, she realized she was surrounded by Federalist Moments while Larry wanted to provoke More Serious Questions about Constitutional Thinking.
- And lastly, because it’s all a question of an engaged citizenry, Katie Reen shared A Letter to My Students Past, Present and Future while Hexxus007 shared his thoughts on current modes of political discourse with Civic “Bad Boys” and “Astro-turf.“
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