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 [...]
Posts under ‘2008 National Academy’
Make a Pledge to Be Here
Discussion happens here if we make it happen. We each need to find a way to step into the forum and make a pledge to be here. Kallan, an Academy participant this year writing as Federal Teacher, made a pledge to give Politicolor 20 minutes a month and asked alumni to do the same. A [...]
My Wish for You: A Letter to My Students Past, Present and Future
Katie Reen graciously shared a copy of her oral exam paper incorporating her insighhts from the National Academy at Occidental College last summer. Katie’s students are 11 and 12 years old and she explains, “The concept of my paper is a letter to my students, past, present and future about what I wish for them [...]
A Paradigm: Six Words for the National Academy
You might remember a New York Times contest to craft a six word motto for the United States. We turned the powerhouse of Academy thinking at the question. Laura suggested a phrase you might recognize… “MUTUAL GUARDIANS OF OUR MUTUAL HAPPINESS” I think that phrase resonated as a result of her work at Monpelier’s NEH [...]
National Academy 2008: Is it Over?
The Rangeview building is nearly quiet this afternoon. It isn’t that the exchange students all went to the beach today but that this year’s National Academy has run out of time. The machines still hum but the electricity of rigorous academic work is missing. From a discussion of constitutional citizenship befitting an intelligent people to [...]
Constitutional Thinking Requires Constitutional Teaching
At the National Academy today, Kevin Fox presented his thoughts on his own constitutional thinking and teaching. In the Academy tradition, his inquiry started with, “What is it?”. His answers included… Reasoned Reflective Creative constructive imaginative Present on-going Whole ordered (not orderly) Scientific systematic experimental Balanced (between extremes) Inclusive (of the parts and the whole) [...]
