The Constitution say WHAT?!

We did a Constitutional Convention in my government class last week. I played George Washington and led the convention. It was nothing short of an adventure.

Each student was given a specific role- a real person who had been at the convention. They were required to adopt that person's perspective and make arguments for certain things.

We used proper parliamentary procedure, the debates were fair, and the voting only happened after everyone had agreed that it was time to vote. There were equal delegates from each perspective, so the point was for each group to come to a compromise, and then the class-made Constitution would turn out similar to the REAL U.S. Constitution.

But this is what happened:

Not only will our country allow slavery for eternity, but we will elect a president who will remain in office HIS ENTIRE LIFE. 

So, let's enslave human beings and elect a dictator. Nice. Did anyone say Nazi Germany?
 
This is what happens when the most talented and forward debaters of the class are assigned similar perspectives. oops. They overpower the weaker, more reasonable delegates.

But seriously, is this how bad government happens? Is this what comes of dominant personalities who all share the same idea? They can easily overpower those who are not willing to speak up. The weak are crushed. Inequality reigns. Imagine if this had been the case at the REAL Constitutional Convention. What would we have ended up with? What if there hadn't been compromise? This is why the Constitution and the organization of our unique federal government is such a miracle-- and further evidence of providential inspiration in its framing.

 But isn't the ease of corruption a scary thought? It is just that easy to get off track.

Anyway.

Other randoms about student teaching and Washington DC in general:
1. The wind is so cold that it eats your face. Well, chews it up and then leaves the exposed flesh as it moves by.
2. When I woke up at 6:15 on Monday morning this week, one word went through my mind repeatedly: WHY?
3. My students think they are liberal because they live in DC and their parents are liberal. However, they are actually quite conservative. This lends credibility to my theory that the human being is conservative in its natural state.
4. We watched "Pleasantville" in one of the other government classes. Two things about that: 1) this movie would never be shown in Utah schools without a permission slip. I felt awkward. 2) The movie-- and the cooperating teacher for that class-- paint conservatism like it is INSANE and inhibits freedom and individual liberties. It made conservative values seem backward and old fashioned. It made me sick a little bit. At least that's the way the discussion went.
5. Quoted by a student in the AP US class that I observed today: "Yeah, flappers were definitely the first hipsters." Said boy is accused of being a hipster at least once a day.
6. I went to the DC temple last night. It's my second time going since I've been here. The ward schedules temple nights, but they are only endowment sessions. But I went with the ward anyway. I needed the feeling of it. The peace and security. So while everyone was in a session, I went down to the baptistry and asked if I could walk in. They let me, and I joined a youth group. It was such a blessing, I can't even say. I finished in about an hour, and had lots of time to kill before the session would be over. So I went to the visitor's center. I think the DC visitor's center might be my favorite of all time. I just sat in front of the Christus and gathered strength. Teaching is hard. Being at that school is hard and stressful, and I needed to just sit there and soak in the Spirit. Unfortunately, by the time I sat down the visitor's center was closing. They let me stay while they cleaned, though. I felt like the whole evening was a series of tender mercies- people at the temple making things work even though I was kind of an inconvenience to everyone. It was such a blessing. I feel so much better about life in general.
7. My US history students are awesome. I really like them. They are funny-- and so polite. They do their homework, and I need to stop being surprised about it. We talked about WW2 propaganda and the Zoot Suit Riots this week. Next week I'm covering the War in the Pacific and the end to the war-- the United Nations and the Atomic Bomb. But I have a really hard time planning for these kids. They are smart and I feel like just telling them what happened in a fun way won't challenge them and then I will be a failure. It's harder than I ever imagined to find ways to bring in higher order thinking and get a good discussion while delivering information at the same time. There is just so much to think about all the time, and it can be very discouraging.

I think that's all I have to say.

I'm really looking forward to the 3 day weekend.

Yep. And after tomorrow I will only have 7 weeks left. And 3 of those weeks are only 4-day weeks. And one of the other ones has an assembly. And another one has an early dismissal. So really only TWO of them are full with no interruptions. Man I'm excited to be done. Monday was the 2-months-left mark. Hip hip hooray!