I'm A Teacher And Need Your Help...

[NOTPARS]

I imagine there aren't to many social studies teachers who are conservatives, NRA life members, and a member of the board for the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance...I know all of them and I am he. Anyway, on to my question.

I teach government. When I get to the unit on the Constitution, I present the Founding Father's point of view. Because kids always bring up nonsense spewed out by the anti-self defense media and their cohorts, I have given them material from John Lott and Gary Keck among others. I always get accused of presenting only the "pro-gun" point of view. My contention is this:

1. I ask how many have heard this view before? The
answer is usually none.
2. Since the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, shouldn't we study their owner's manual? (again, keep in mind they have not heard this point of view before).

Anyway, if anyone else has some positive suggestions on other ways to handle or explain this, I should would like to hear them.:usa:

[DocWagon]

Have one student come to the front of the room. Steal half of his lunch money. Give that money to another student to force the frist student to give you his belt and shoe strings.

Explain to the students that you just showed them how the government works. It takes about half of your money and uses it to take away things that you use but that it thinks are dangerous. (After all, you could hang yourself with shoestrings or a belt.)

Next, explain to them that our founding fathers wanted to keep their lunch money, shoe strings, and belts, so they wrote the constitution after flipping England the bird. Modern politicians have flipped us the bird and destroyed large sections of the constitution.

Do you think this would work? It might, but I bet if you try it, you won't get to much longer.
:D

[treadwellj]

Have you looked at the Second Amendment Foundation website, www.saf.org (http://www.saf.org)? On the left of the homepage there is a category of General Interest and under there is a Student Section. Has quite a few frequently asked questions that might come up when teaching youngsters.

[NOTPARS]

I think you have an excellent idea, and I think you would like my class. I teach from the Founding Father's point of view. I teach my students about the enumerated powers in Article 1, Section 8, I use quotations and writings from the Founding Fathers to explain the true meaning of the welfare "clause" and commerce clause, hint, its not what the politicians say it means..., and I also teach them the truth about the Second Amendment...which probably explains why after 11 years I teach in a trailer (ROTC has the other half) up by the tennis courts. Again, great idea and I think I might be able to pull that off.

[NOTPARS]

I haven't been to that website in quite some time. I appreciate the heads up. This gets to be a touchy issue, the Second Amendment. Out of the 18 teachers in my department, the social(ist) studies department, I am the only pro-Second Amendment teacher. I know I am the only teacher out of 200 that is a life member of the NRA. I don't say that to brag or anything, but just to illustrate the upwill battles I have to fight...with the other teachers. When we tried to pass a right to carry law here in Missouri, the Clinton folks ran scare adds saying this would lead to child molestors on school grounds with Uzi's nuts? Yep, but the teachers, female, bought it. I had a tough time trying to convince them that this nonsense was, well nonsense. Again, thanks for the hlep!:2guns:

[DocWagon]

A good source for material is the site www.blackmask.com (http://www.blackmask.com). It is a site with e-books of printed material that is old enough that it is now public domain, so it is legal to distribute it freely.

http://www.blackmask.com/page.php?do=searc...aine&cat_id=125 (http://www.blackmask.com/page.php?do=search&query=Paine&cat_id=125) will take you to some of their Thomas Paine collection.

Having your students read "Common Sense" will help them understand the flavor of the time period. I'm sure you're aware of its importance in jump starting our revolution, but actually reading it in its original wording is worth it, and since it was just a pamphlet, it can be read pretty quickly. "Principals of Government" and several others are also available.

O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her—Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind. - Thomas Paine

The "Critical Lives" series of biographies has an excellent biography of Thomas Jefferson, as well. The book should be fairly easy reading for middle schoolers and easy for high schoolers, I would guess. Alan Axelrod is the author, and if you like I can get the ISBN from my copy at home. Introducing the students to Thomas Jefferson, John and Samuel Adams, John Marshall, etc as more than just names and vague charactures may also help them really understand where are roots are.

Best of luck.

[NOTPARS]

Excellent reply sir! I am downloading and using your material. This was a big help. I wish I could use it in my college American history class. The professor is a Marxist and a feminist. She teaches that the American Revolution only benefitted white males, and then only those of the upper middle class. And, she also teaches that the Revolution not only didn't help women, blacks, and Indians, IT ACTUALLY HURT THEM!!! She argues that the Revolution was not really the implementation of the ideas of the Enlightenment or of republicanism but it was all about class warfare and economics. So, the ideology of the war did not translate into gains for blacks, women, or Indians. I have talked through e-mail with several professors who wrote that she is nuts but they are too busy at this time of the year to help out. If you have any sources or thoughts on this, I'd like to read them. I got some interesting looks in this class recently when I wore my SIG Arms Academy polo shirt to class!

[DocWagon]

Sounds like a historical revisionist, to me. Jefferson fought hard to remove the land and property requirements from being requirements to be able to vote, and he was definitely "landed" himself. Paine argues eloquently against the need for property as a means for deciding who votes. I would hardly call it class warfare. Now, their were inequalities. The enlisted men of the continental army never got most of its backpay, while its officers got land grants. Obviously slavery was the biggest inequality of all. You have to put this in perspective, though. People have an idea that Thomas Lincoln, Abraham's father, was lazy and raised his family in abject poverty. If you broaden your perspective you realize that the area he lived in had no outside trade, so there was no reason to grow crops beyond what you could use personally. He was an industrious and well-to-do man BY THE STANDARDS OF HIS TIME AND LOCATION, NOT OURS.

In the same lack-of-persepective, you can say that Jefferson was a racist. He kept slaves, after all. He believed that blacks were inferior to whites. He is a racist IN OUR TIME, NOT HIS. He tried to write an end to slavery into law several times, but it was always deemed to radical and never happened. His butler, a slave who's name I can't recall off the top of my head, faced being shot by British soldiers rather than tell him where Jefferson had fled to when the Brits came to capture him while he was governor of Virgina. In his will he begged for 5 of his slaves to be given their freedom. For HIS TIME, he was not a racist, and was remarkably progressive in that instance.

She probably teaches that we got most of our slaves from capturing natives of Africa, as well. Read the documents of the time, and you will find that most of the slaves we got were traded to us by their own people. That doesn't make it right, obviously, but it does change the context a bit. When some of the rabble rousers in the black community cry for reperations, they never mention that their own people sold them, do they?

Only by getting a feel for the time period can you actually understand people and their views in context. Most teachers teach history as a series of names, quotes, and dates. How many students realize how close together the civil war and WW1 occured? How many realize that the sons of civil war veterans fought in Europe, with muzzle loaders being replaced with cartridge fed rifles and mustard gas in the mean time? History is often taught as a bunch of isolated incidents that occured in a vacuum.

I'd also ask her if the revolution was so bad for blacks, why isn't Africa the model of civil rights? The revolution didn't help women? It didn't immediately lead to women being able to vote, but it increased the financial strength of the former colonies, allowign for better life for everyone, and it LAYED THE FOUNDATION for women's suffrage. you can't expect radical change to happen all at once, it is built up over time. The Indians did get hosed, but they did not have the romanticized life style of the "noble savage" that is so popular today. We conquered them in war and expanded into their territory. The individual tribes had done this to each other as far back as oral history can recall.

Best of luck, and keep up the good work.

[Edward429451]

Wow, a teacher that teaches the truth. What a concept. My hats off to you, sir.

I got a twisted one for you...I've read the Constitution, repeatedly. Everyone talks as if the Constitution is by the people, for the people and such. It gives us rights carved in stone so to speak.

I dont get it or dont agree. I dont see how a piece of paper gives us any rights. Rights come from God, or from birth, or from the Common law depending on perspective.

The more I read the Constitution and ponder this issue, I seem to realize that the gubmint dont confer any rights or any piece of paper either. I think that human rights are a given. The common law is a reduced version of the 10 commandments which are summarized into two principles thusly, 1. Do not infringe on the rights of others, and, 2., Keep all contracts entered into voluntarily. These cover a LOT of ground.

So the Constitution is a 'syllabus for the gubmint' to go by and not for the people at all. It restricts the actions of gubmint through guidelines (which are not followed). The free people have all rights conferred by maker or common law and have no restrictions until one violates one of the two principles against another. So, in theory, the Constitution dont mean squat to anyone but the gubmint. The people are subserviant to a higher power or common (law) sense.

Agree? Disagree? Twisted? Comments? Hmmm. :D

[tommygun2000]

Originally posted by Edward429451
Wow, a teacher that teaches the truth. What a concept. My hats off to you, sir.

I got a twisted one for you...I've read the Constitution, repeatedly. Everyone talks as if the Constitution is by the people, for the people and such. It gives us rights carved in stone so to speak.

I dont get it or dont agree. I dont see how a piece of paper gives us any rights. Rights come from God, or from birth, or from the Common law depending on perspective.

The more I read the Constitution and ponder this issue, I seem to realize that the gubmint dont confer any rights or any piece of paper either. I think that human rights are a given. The common law is a reduced version of the 10 commandments which are summarized into two principles thusly, 1. Do not infringe on the rights of others, and, 2., Keep all contracts entered into voluntarily. These cover a LOT of ground.

So the Constitution is a 'syllabus for the gubmint' to go by and not for the people at all. It restricts the actions of gubmint through guidelines (which are not followed). The free people have all rights conferred by maker or common law and have no restrictions until one violates one of the two principles against another. So, in theory, the Constitution dont mean squat to anyone but the gubmint. The people are subserviant to a higher power or common (law) sense.

Agree? Disagree? Twisted? Comments? Hmmm. :D

instructions and restrictions upon the governers, by the governed.
It does not give any rights, it protects rights that already exist and instructs the government not to infringe upon such rights.
It specifically enumerates the powers which the federal government has and any variance from such powers is called a usurpation. This is patently unlawful and is a direct violation of the Constitution.
This is why the liberal left socialists and communists in this country want to do away with the Constitution and all that it stands for, which is CONTROL OF THE GOVERNMENT.

The authors of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights knew full well that any political body without restrictions would run roughshod over those whom they governed(much like todays climate). They set forth to specify exactly what the government could do. Anything else that the government did was and is criminal. They(the authors) knew that there needed to be a force among the people so that they might protect themselves from a tyrrant and this is why the ammendment concerning arms was number two on the list of things that were important to freedom and a government that knew its place. They knew that if a standing army was formed, that it could and most likely would, be used against them...{much like todays federal agencies of hired guns...any and all of the alphabet soup agencies} and that the people needed to be armed as well as or better than any government force that might be assembled.
The militias of the time and of today are specifically empowered by law and the existance of a standing army is a threat to all free men, particularly when that army is directed by the federal government against the people of this country.
Ever wonder why there has never been an overt military invasion of the United States? Because no forces would last long given the amount of arms in the hands of the people of this country.

This is why there is an under current of legislation to get the guns out of peoples hands, so that tyrrany can reign supreme.
The ideologies of those who legislate anti rights /antigun laws are those of communists and marxists. They want absolute unfettered power and they know that this cannot be acheived against an armed public.
Look at every dictatorship in history and one of the first actions against the people was disarmament, without exception.

Keep Your Guns, Keep Your Rights, Lose Your Guns, You Lose ALL.

[MR. BRENNEKE]

My 2 cents. Speak on the forsight of our founders regarding the nature of government. Genocide. And use modern day materials regarding the pre-conditions to the genocides that have taken place in the last century. J.P.F.O is a great resource for this argument.JPFO (http://www.jpfo.org)

[Edward429451]

Ah, so I am not alone. Wonder why we're not in full revolution? Is that someone at the door?