Each year, educational institutions which receive federal funding must provide programming on the US Constitution around September 17th, Constitution Day. This provides Move to Amend an opportunity to make connections with educators, administrators, and students, and talk about the process of amending the Constitution as a way to make change. We encourage Move to Amend supporters and affiliates to reach out to the schools in your community, and offer to provide materials or present to their classrooms!
There are many ways to use this opportunity:
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Offer to give a presentation in a classroom and talk about corporate constitutional rights.
- Offer Legalize Democracy to teachers to show in class, and offer to lead a discussion.
- Use the interactive timeline presentation (adapted below for a classroom experience) to get students thinking about rights and social change in a constitutional context.
If you have any questions, contact Jessica Munger at [email protected] or by phone at 916-318-8040.
Included:
Suggested timeline for communicating with the school faculty
Sample Letter to present to educators/administrators
Timeline exercise to present to students (with an adjusted version for high school students)
Instructions/tips for presenting
Discussion and debrief questions for students
Follow up suggestions and materials for ongoing learning
Timeline:
In order to give teachers enough time to plan to do this programming, we suggest the following timeline for contacting schools:
July
By mid - July, you’ll want to reach out to school administrators, principals, curriculum developers, and department heads. You may need to do some research and asking around to determine who is the best person (or people) talk to. For colleges and universities, department heads may be the best place to start. Consider the history and political science departments.
August
This is the best time to reach out to teachers, about two weeks before school starts. The conversations you have in July should help inform these conversations.
September
You’ll either provide the timeline exercise and accompanying materials to teachers, or offer to come in as a guest presenter. A week or so after the presentation, follow up with the teacher…
Sample Letter:
This letter can be used to introduce yourself to educators and explain what you hope to do. To add your affiliate contact information, make a copy (upper right-hand corner, click “File” --> “Make a copy”) and add the information where you’re prompted and customize the letter in your personal copy of this document.
Rights and Privileges Timeline Exercise:
The Rights and Privileges Timeline is a great exercise for students because it involves the class in examining injustice and corporate power, includes movement and requires participation. This adaptation has been adjusted from the original presentation to suit a shorter amount of time so the presenter can get through the whole exercise in one class period with discussion and debrief.
You can watch the video of the full length, original exercise at the bottom of this page.
Print these cards (one sheet per case, not double sided) for the exercise. it works best if you print each timeline on a different color paper:
Debrief Questions:
Here are some questions that might help debrief the information covered in the timeline. Keep in mind that the timeline exercise can be emotional for many people and often presents new (and potentially disturbing) information. Students may want to share feelings or talk through what they just learned.
Follow Up/ Call to Action:
Here is a list of follow up action items that students may be interested in. To add your affiliate contact information, make a copy (upper right-hand corner, click “File” --> “Make a copy”) and add the information where you’re prompted, and any other affiliate specific action items (invitations to upcoming events, etc).
