Category: constitutional rights
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History in the Kitchen: Origins of the Supreme Court, RBG, and Ratatouille
Marbury v. Madison The tradition of judicial review began with a Supreme Court Case decided in 1803. In Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court used the power of judicial review for the first time- that is, their power to determine whether a law is constitutional or not. When it became apparent that John Adams, a…
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History in the Kitchen: Women’s Suffrage & Marshmallow Tea Cakes
Women’s suffrage in the United States has layers. Lots and lots of layers. In any historical analysis, it is important to identify all of the key players: the ones that are seen very clearly because of history books and the ones that were there- and had loud voices- but don’t get as much attention.
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Political Philosophy BEFORE the Revolution
In reading text books over the years, I’ve noticed that many mention that the colonists sought the “British rights” to which they were entitled as a cause of the American Revolution. Among other things, taxation without representation angered them and they were incensed by the Crown denying them trial by jury. However, in these same…
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Race & Judicial Review
After our study of Marbury v. Madison, we have always had students look at judicial review through a modern lens. For many years, students studied and argued federal Supreme Court cases related to children and education. They could choose to work with cases such as Tinker v. DesMoines or NJ v. TLO. This year, however,…
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Propaganda, Racism, & Japanese Internment
Recently I was speaking to a former student about her US II History class at her new school. She told me about her year and about the topics she and her classmates covered in class but then mentioned that she was upset about a recent reading. She had read about Japanese internment during World War…
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Empowering Students
Wow! What a whirlwind of a week. After the mass-shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018, several students approached my colleagues and me about how to take on the issue of gun violence in schools and on the streets. They wanted to walk out of school…