“That the strong might not oppress the weak.”1
Introduction
The biggest issue that I have with my current Social Studies curriculum is relating the significance of ancient history to today. The gap that I would like to bridge is to connect what we are learning about the early forms of law codes to our current school discipline system. Students will connect their understandings of how the beginning ideas of justice were first developed in civilizations to how justice is, or is not, served in schools. I would like to add a Social Justice layer into this unit by having students decide what causes students to misbehave at school and how we handle discipline in schools. My unit will show students how discipline in schools can potentially lead to the school-to-prison-pipeline and what this does for our larger community. My ultimate goal is to have students not only understand the significance of the law codes and serving justice, but also find ways to answer the essential question, what is justice and is it represented equally for everyone? As part of the standards, my students will use their historical interpretation skills that asks them to, “understand and distinguish cause, effect, sequence, and correlation in historical events, including the long-and short-term casual relationships”, as well as, “explaining the sources of historical continuity and how the combination of ideas and events explains the emergence of new patterns.” They will critically analyze the positive and negative outcomes of discipline at their school.
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