question for teachers about bill of rights

[scentopine]

How do you discuss the bill of rights in classroom given that our current president has

- decriminalized torture

- legalized indefinite detention without trial

- legalized corporations spying on civilians and giving the info to NSA/CIA/DoD/police

- legalized using military as adjunct police force to apprehend "terrorists"

- endorsed secret military courts

Do you say something like "It's no biggie because Obama and all future presidents are good guys and would make sure that we only torture and lock up bad guys, just like the good presidents on TV (and to prove Obama is a good guy, include pictures of Obama and George Clooney)?

Do you discuss when it is appropriate to torture someone or put them under state surveillance (with a special unit on keeping photos secret)?

Do you teach that protest is really low-level terrorism? http://open.salon.com/blog/dennis_loo/2009/06/14/dod_training_manual_protests_are_low-level_terrorism

Are there special teaching units supplied by the Democratic Party to help parents adjust to the new foundations of a more fascist America? We've invested quite a bit of time explaining why torture is sadistic, spying on each other is wrong, search and seizure is wrong, etc. As "old democrats" do we apologize to our children and hope they will forgive us for teaching them the wrong values?

Maybe dems need to publish some coloring books like "Ollie the Friendly Torturer" or "The Happy Little Drone" or maybe "Mr. Obama's Secret Prison" or "Peppy Pepper Spray" or the more serious "The Dangers of Organized Protest" focused at tweens.

Hand these out with "Mommy and Daddy's Job Now Helps People in India" coloring books at the DNC convention in Charlotte.

Perhaps Charlotte's large population of Wall Street CEOs would be very happy to donate the money for these wonderful new teaching materials. After all, the new democratic party is all business.

[elleng]

1. Not 'alerting' due to an openhearted sense of goodwill for the new year,

but this is not useful for a constructive discussion group, imo.

[scentopine]

2. How should democrats teach kids that it is OK to torture? -nt

[limpyhobbler]

4. I thought Obama was against tortue. I saw him on TV opposed to waterboarding.

[scentopine]

16. Yep and he was against spying on Americans until he was for it

He was against indefinite detention, until he was for it.

He decriminalized torture and charged CIA with putting new safeguards in place to make sure photos never get leaked again. There are thousands of photos, human rights groups have seen them - they show horrific results of torture along with photos of the people who committed the torture. Obama supported releasing them until it was no longer politically convenient. The perpetrators were a combination of government employees and contractors. The pro-torture lobby in both parties beat down a public inquiry, investigation and prosecution for war crimes.

Obama was against AT&T spying on Americans until it was no longer politically convenient. He was for single payer until it was no longer politically convenient.

Basically, Democratic leadership is willing to support truth and justice until it isn't financially prudent or expedient to do so. When Wall Street CEOs complain (many who control large defense and/or telecommunications firms and could be implicated in an ugly investigation about torture, etc), Obama, the leader of the democratic party, reacts like a good soldier.

As you can see by counting convictions against CEOs and executives of big banks who defrauded trillions from tax payers, justice has no place in the big business of corporate sponsored government.

Like taxes, justice is something to be inflicted on unincorporated citizens.

As more and more public dissent builds up, look for Obama and democratic right wingers to endorse even more draconian measures to control dissent and prevent it from holding the government and industry accountable for their crimes.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

5. I disagree, this is exactly how to show another perspective or

example on how our rights are being taken away.
What surprises me is that there is not more outrage directed at these laws.
Question, who was responsible for the language in the bill that states a person can be arrested, not charged and detained forever?
Whose name is on it?

[YvonneCa]

7. I agree. n/t

[roguevalley]

18. as a teacher you present the facts and let the chips fall

Where they may. Frankly given its true it is fit. If i were on the jury i would leave it alone. My job is not to. Cover the shit anyone does but tell the truth. Good op. It will be a hard thing to say obama is a two face on this but it is the truth. Someone on the Tv was discussing this. So what if he personally doesn't invoke it. Someone will. And what about the unlikely idea he losos? Williard would use it.

This is being tapped out on a kindle. Hope it makes sense.

[LWolf]

3. My students get a basic introduction

to the writing of the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.

If they want to discuss the current interpretations, violations, and actions relevant to that study, I allow them to do so, and moderate from a neutral position.

[scentopine]

8. I was taught using examples of British holding colonists in prison without trial

etc. i.e. by example.

I think you can teach words and ask them to memorize, but without historical context and cause and effect, it loses all meaning and significance.

If a law is passed that makes it legal to hold people indefinitely without trial in a military prison, isn't that more than just academic interpretation?

A while back I helped my kid research a unit that asked why we have bill of rights, specifically what policies by British motivated each of first ten amendments.

Part of that involved memorizing the first 10 amendments, however, to show that you understood the material, you had to provide context that demonstrated understanding.

There are recent factual examples that challenge the bill of rights, i.e. the bill of rights is less legal foundation and more political symbolism.

For example - is there really free speech? The US Government says no, there really isn't. Democrats and republicans both agree on this point.

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/21/convicted_for_words_not_deeds/

http://atheism.about.com/b/2003/12/24/free-speech-zones.htm

With civil rights movement from 1920s through 1970s, I don't recall any teacher staying neutral while teaching material about whether a black person should be able to order food in a restaurant or sit in any seat on the bus.

However, maybe things would be different today.

[LWolf]

23. I try to avoid teaching words and dates to memorize.

I don't think it's possible to teach history without teaching cause and effect. That's what I teach...the writing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the factors and factions at the Constitutional Convention.

There are plenty of recent examples. I don't "teach" those examples. Neither do I discourage discussion of them, if they come up.

I teach minors. That requires me to stay politically neutral in the classroom.

I encourage them to explore and to research their questions, and debate their conclusions. They are allowed to express their interpretations in the classroom, and they are required to use evidence to back up those interpretations when they do so.

I remember my high school teachers stepping out of that neutral box; we were older, about to become adults, and we were allowed to challenge them if we disagreed, as long as we did so constructively, with evidence. In the current authoritarian climate, with teachers being burned daily at the metaphorical stake by the press, by the community, and by way too many parents, it's too easy to destroy a career.

My professors never had to worry; we were adults, and were expected to come to class with the ability to analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and debate the information we were given. And, again, we were free to challenge any position taken by a professor, as long as we did so with intellectual integrity.

I don't teach high school or college. I teach middle school. The students are younger, and at the age parents begin to fear losing control. In the modern world, open questioning of an authority figure isn't allowed by many of our parents. The majority of my parents teach their kids to be passive, and to never question anything they're told. Those parents go on the attack if they think their "family value" of unquestioning obedience or acceptance of what they are told is being undermined. Every time their student is given a weighty question to wrestle with, someone will be on the phone complaining.

There are some on the other side of the coin as well; parents who encourage their students to be obstructive and oppositional, under the umbrella of "questioning." Their way of "sticking it" to those hated teachers.

Maybe things are different today because of the disdain for, and distrust of, teachers in general that has become part of the national psyche since the Reagan administration.

The bottom line, though, is that parents expect that their children will not be taught from a biased position. They have a right to expect that. So we remain neutral.

[YvonneCa]

10. Good answer. AND a good example of why...

...the job of a teacher can be quite complicated.

[femmocrat]

6. Who pissed in your champagne?

Happy New Year, scentopine.

[scentopine]

11. Obama signing NDAA and whimpering something about "reservations" -nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. We don't teach Social Studies.

It's not tested.

[scentopine]

13. Yes. Good point. We have to stay neutral on torture and whether its OK

to spray black people with a firehose (or pepper spray) if they try to eat in a restaurant.

Students just have to memorize the Bill of Rights, recite it on a test and it's done and forgotten.

Maybe there needs to be a test question like:

An example of torture is:

1. shocking genitals with a high voltage (turning the voltage off just before unconsciousness and such that it occurs with minimal permanent scaring)

2. holding someones head underwater in a way that perfectly simulates drowning (pulling their head up just before unconsciousness such that they can be revived with the proper medical equipment with minimal permanent brain damage)

3. listening to democrats defend torture and NDAA as sensible and pragmatic public policy that should not be satirized or used as decision making criteria when evaluating whether or not you support a candidate for president.

4. all of the above

[treestar]

12. There's a curriculum

Teachers don't have to reference the current President. They do not have to be obsessed with him.

Also your list is subject to debate.

[mr715]

14. I teach science.

So it usually does not come up.

Teachers usually should take a neutral perspective and provide resources to allow the kids to do their own decision making.

[scentopine]

15. I have a problem with "neutral" and cruel/unusual. Neutral is the cancer killing journalism

there is nothing neutral about torture or whether earth is 5000 years old or whether black people or women should have right to vote or whether the benefits of slavery should be taught along with negative aspects of slavery or whether the positive aspects of sending Jews to ovens should be taught along side of negative aspects.

There are too many false equivalencies in this world. Not every evil deserves the amnesty implied by neutrality.

Letting kids decide for themselves whether these policies are good or bad is foolish. They are children. Some still believe in Santa Claus.

There are very good lessons in history that need to be taught, not just names, places and dates.


==============


Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase describing criminal punishment which is considered unacceptable due to the suffering or humiliation it inflicts on the condemned person. These exact words were first used in the English Bill of Rights in 1689, and later were also adopted by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1787) and British Slavery Amelioration Act (1798).

Very similar words ('No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment') appear in Article Five of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/217, December 10, 1948). The right, under a different formulation ('No one shall be subjected to [...] inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.') is found in Article Three of the European Convention on Human Rights (1950). The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) also contains this fundamental right in section 12 and it is to be found again in Article Four (quoting the European Convention verbatim) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000). It is also found in Article 16 of the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and in Article 40 of the Constitution of Poland.[1]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_and_unusual_punishment

[mr715]

22. I understand your concern.

But teaching kids is about cultivating their own thinking skills.

Reality has its liberal bias, and given enough neutral information, critical thinking individuals should arrive at similar conclusions. The rational ones.

[limpyhobbler]

17. The OP has a good point

This country has changed a lot since I was a kid. Our civil rights have been eroded alot. Government has a lot more powers over people than it did 30 to 40 years ago. How do we teach about the changes that have occurred, like the PATRIOT act for example?

[Herlong]

19. Tell them the truth

Show respect, of course. Your problem is you believe that every person has to know everything thier first day of school.

[Suji to Seoul]

20. We teach what is supposed to be, not what it is

Or else we get demandments from the power brokers to "just teach the textbook."

Remember, students and parents can force their opinions down our throats with ramrods, but even playing devil's advocate will get some worthless parent's knickers in a twist.

[Citizen Worker]

21. Well said Scentopine. I have often thought over the last few years what my high school Government

teacher thought about these developments and more than one of my college profs.