remembrance of things past
In Junior High school at Paideia, each (homeroom) class had a court system. The purpose of the court system was threefold: to teach us a little something about government, to teach us a little something about self-government, and to maintain a certain level of order without the teachers having to reprimand us constantly. So each time someone did something "bad," if it offended you, you could go to the DA (elected) and get them charged with a crime. Subsequently, there would be a trial by jury, overwhich the elected judge would preside, and guilt or innocence would be decided, and some type of punishment doled out by the judge. No teacher intervention occurred unless the "crime" was especially heinous, in which case the court system was circumvented and the teacher took your ass to the Headmaster.
I was in a newly-created class, and the class didn't have a constitution. So our project, in the first few weeks of school, was to draft a constitution in order to implement the court system. There was no executive or legislative branch, but the judicial branch elections were entirely a popularity contast (my plight as ADA is a story for another day). In any event, the class was comprised of both 7th and 8th graders, and this was at the beginning of the year. The majority of the class was 7th graders, and the 8th graders, this being the beginning of the year, had just started Civics. Nobody knew the first damn thing about drafting a constitution. Nonetheless, this being our instrument of self-policing, the teachers insisted that we put forth a good faith effort to do it ourselves.
We had a full-class meeting, and people began throwing out suggestions. Most of the suggestions were statutory suggestions, but the teachers failed to note the difference between the constitution and statutes, and in any event, we had no legislature. It was a specious and ridiculous enterprise. But at some point, someone suggested that we have amendments. Everyone's ears perked up. I think it was Dom that said this. He said, "you know, Amendments, like the right to free speech, and the right to a fair trial." Everyone got really excited, because we'd heard of these concepts before, and started shouting out everything they could remember about the first 10 amendments to the U.S. constitution. Given the fact that none of us knew shit-all about government beyond what we'd learned on School House Rocks! reruns, this was a pretty big breakthrough. So there's all this chatter and all these suggestions and there's a real aura of energy and excitment in the classroom, and everyone's saying "Yeah!" and being really supportive of other students' suggestions.
And then Becca, the teacher, started shouting. "QUIET!! QUIET!! EVERYBODY LISTEN!!!!"
We all fell silent.
"Don't you guys KNOW what AMENDMENTS are?"
No answer. More silence.
"AMENDMENTS are something you tag on the end of something you've already written, or changes that you make to something you've already written."
More silence.
"Don't you understand? You guys, you can't amend something that you haven't written yet!"
My ears started to burn.
Then, the conversation completely shut down and we had to sit there, dejectedly, until we'd drafted something, which meant that, disheartened and angry already, we had to miss lunch.
The reason I write this story is that I am reading, for Crim, Kastigar v. United States, and somewhere during the third paragraph of Justice Powell's opinion, I had this epiphany. Becca could have simply told us that we should call what we were talking about a "Bill of Rights." Becca SHOULD have told us that, instead of shutting us down and making everyone feel stupid and childish and angry.
Man, do I have an earful for her.
I was in a newly-created class, and the class didn't have a constitution. So our project, in the first few weeks of school, was to draft a constitution in order to implement the court system. There was no executive or legislative branch, but the judicial branch elections were entirely a popularity contast (my plight as ADA is a story for another day). In any event, the class was comprised of both 7th and 8th graders, and this was at the beginning of the year. The majority of the class was 7th graders, and the 8th graders, this being the beginning of the year, had just started Civics. Nobody knew the first damn thing about drafting a constitution. Nonetheless, this being our instrument of self-policing, the teachers insisted that we put forth a good faith effort to do it ourselves.
We had a full-class meeting, and people began throwing out suggestions. Most of the suggestions were statutory suggestions, but the teachers failed to note the difference between the constitution and statutes, and in any event, we had no legislature. It was a specious and ridiculous enterprise. But at some point, someone suggested that we have amendments. Everyone's ears perked up. I think it was Dom that said this. He said, "you know, Amendments, like the right to free speech, and the right to a fair trial." Everyone got really excited, because we'd heard of these concepts before, and started shouting out everything they could remember about the first 10 amendments to the U.S. constitution. Given the fact that none of us knew shit-all about government beyond what we'd learned on School House Rocks! reruns, this was a pretty big breakthrough. So there's all this chatter and all these suggestions and there's a real aura of energy and excitment in the classroom, and everyone's saying "Yeah!" and being really supportive of other students' suggestions.
And then Becca, the teacher, started shouting. "QUIET!! QUIET!! EVERYBODY LISTEN!!!!"
We all fell silent.
"Don't you guys KNOW what AMENDMENTS are?"
No answer. More silence.
"AMENDMENTS are something you tag on the end of something you've already written, or changes that you make to something you've already written."
More silence.
"Don't you understand? You guys, you can't amend something that you haven't written yet!"
My ears started to burn.
Then, the conversation completely shut down and we had to sit there, dejectedly, until we'd drafted something, which meant that, disheartened and angry already, we had to miss lunch.
The reason I write this story is that I am reading, for Crim, Kastigar v. United States, and somewhere during the third paragraph of Justice Powell's opinion, I had this epiphany. Becca could have simply told us that we should call what we were talking about a "Bill of Rights." Becca SHOULD have told us that, instead of shutting us down and making everyone feel stupid and childish and angry.
Man, do I have an earful for her.