Strategies
Through reading, discussion, and writing, students will consider the issues in their personal and school lives that entail rights and that might provide opportunities to voice their thoughts. These include the right to privacy of person and locker, freedom and limitations regarding religion on school grounds, speech itself in a school setting, assembly as a means to register grievances, the requirements for identification, uniformity in clothing, school attendance itself, and options regarding standardized testing and information sharing with the military.
Define Liberty. Define Civil Liberty.
Review John Stuart Mill's definition; generate examples of situations where the power of society to limit or eliminate an individuals' right to question is apparent to them in today's world. "…Civil or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over an individual."
Reflection/Discussion on Overarching Concepts
| a. | Many of society's "protections" are either unjust or ineffective, e.g. laws regarding firearms: In present day Philadelphia, young people are at high risk for gun violence. City streets in some ways represent a "war zone." |
| b. | Society's power over individuals is a recurring theme in many works of literature, e.g.: Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience", Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. (Student Reading List) |
| c. | Students can gain an understanding of these issues through the lenses of history (see above), language (S. Johnson, Orwell, et al), and activism (role models like King, Rustin, Randolph, Anthony, and Bob Herbert ("...the correct response is not to grow fainthearted or to internalize the views of those who wish you ill …. (but to develop) a radically heightened awareness of the issues, increased civic participation, and recognition that traditional fault lines of prejudice and fear must be overcome." (http://www.). |
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