Are the Core Democratic Values Alive and Kicking in Michigan Today?

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This lesson is most appropriate for High School classrooms.

Theme: Do the core democratic values still work in Michigan today

MCF Benchmark: Explain why people may agree on democratic values in the abstract but disagree when they are applied to specific situations.

Other benchmarks this lesson targets include: none

Materials needed:

  1. Copies of the Michigan Constitution for each student (this can be found at www.state.mi.us/migov/Constitution)
  2. Sign that reads STRONGLY AGREE
  3. Sign that reads STRONGLY DISAGREE
  4. Tape to hang signs
  5. List of statements for human continuum exercise
  6. Focus questions on small pieces of paper for group work
  7. Activity journal sheets for each student
  8. List of Reflection Questions for each student

Methodological procedure:

DAY ONE SHORT SYNOPSIS:

  1. Core Democratic Value Scavenger Hunt and Discussion
  2. Large Class Discussion: Core Democratic Values in Michigan Detective Work
  3. Explanation of Core Democratic Value Detective assignment
  4. Core Democratic Values Human Continuum Exercise
  5. Explanation of Journal Assignment

DAY ONE DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. Core Democratic Value Scavenger Hunt and Discussion
    -- Divide students into small groups of no more than 4 and give each student a copy of the Michigan Constitution. Tell the students that it is their mission to find the spot in this document where the core democratic values are expressed most clearly/explicitly. It will not take students long to figure out that the values are laid out in Article I, Sections 1-24.
    -- The small groups should then identify and make a list of some of the core democratic values that they find. Once they have completed their lists, the students should begin small discussions by answering some of the following questions, which should be posted on the board (small discussions should not take longer than 10 minutes):
    -- Why are the core democratic values in the BEGINNING of Michigan's Constitution as opposed to an afterthought at the end of the document, like the US Constitution?
    -- What might it mean that the core democratic values are placed at the beginning?
    -- The document was authored between 1961-63. What was happening at that time that
    may have influenced the writing of the Constitution?
    -- Are these concepts (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness...) notions that we still value today in Michigan? How do you know? How could you find out?
    -- Are there any ideals in Article I that are controversial? Are there any ideals with which people would be likely to disagree?
    -- Are any of the concepts in Article I (the core democratic values) in conflict with one another? What happens when these come into conflict? How could these conflicts be resolved?
    -- The teacher should then conduct a larger group discussion regarding the questions that the students addressed in their smaller groups.
  2. Core Democratic Values in Michigan Detective Work: Large Group Discussion
    -- As a class, the students should choose ONE core democratic value to focus on. The teacher should then instruct students to think of a.) a current event that exemplifies this value thriving in Michigan and b.) a current event that demonstrates that this value may be in jeopardy in Michigan.
    Below are some ideas for this discussion:
    Example One
    --Core democratic value chosen to examine = LIBERTY
    -- Evidence that liberty is alive and well in Michigan might be recent business mergers (i.e. Daimler Chrysler) since the right to engage in any lawful economic activity is part of this value. You could also talk about recent elections or the David Jaye situation because the right to choose and remove public officials is a part of liberty as a value.
    -- Evidence that liberty is not working in Michigan could be that prisoners cannot vote or that in
    most of Michigan it is legal to discriminate against individuals in housing and employment on the basis of their sexuality. In these cases, some might argue that the right to vote and participate in political life should be inalienable in a democracy, even if you are a drug offender. Others would argue that the right to seek employment is part of one's liberty in a democracy and that sexual orientation should not impact the ability to exercise that right.
    Example Two
    --Core democratic value chosen to examine= LIFE
    -- Evidence that the value of life is upheld in Michigan might be that assisted suicide is illegal (students surely know about Dr. Kevorkian).
    -- Evidence that life is not valued in Michigan might be gathered through considering the Federal Bureau of Justice's investigation and findings of the Detroit Police Department. The Bureau found that the Detroit Police Department kills more of its citizens than any other police department in the country! Students may recall the high-profile case during the fall of 2000 where the Detroit police officer killed the deaf-mute man who was holding a rake. Some students may even recall the Malice Green case.
    --This discussion should serve as a model for what you expect them to do for homework (described below).
  3. HOMEWORK: Core Democratic Values Detective Work
    -- The students are to choose one core democratic value (Values can also be assigned in order to ensure variety). Each student is to bring in TWO pieces of evidence, in the form of newspaper, magazine or valid Internet articles. The first piece of evidence should show that the core democratic value is alive and well in Michigan and the second piece should show that this value may be in jeopardy. Point students to helpful Internet sites such as the Detroit Free Press (www.freep.com) or Detroit News (www.detnews.com). Your local paper may also have a website.
    -- The students should write three short response paragraphs for each piece of evidence. The first should briefly summarize the article and connect the core democratic value of the student's choice. The second paragraph should explain why the value is "alive and kicking" and the third should explain why it is in jeopardy.
    -- The assessment for this portion of the assignment is left to the discretion of the teacher. It can be checked for quality and given a small amount of points or simply checked for completion.
  4. Core Democratic Values Human Continuum Exercise
    -- Go over the concept of a continuum with students.
    -- Depending on the students, it might be helpful to make an analogy to a light spectrum, by pointing out that the colors are CONTINUOUS and not discrete. The extremes are at either end and the colors in the middle are simply gradations that blend into each other. People with opinions about issues tend to be much the same way. Some people feel very strongly about an issue while others have very mixed feelings about it. Furthermore, it is very possible (and perhaps desirable) for people to move around on the continuum about the same issue at different points in their lives or in different situations.
    -- Inform the students that they are going to create a human continuum in class today. Tell the students, "We are conducting this activity in order to make the core democratic values more realistic. Let's look at the values in terms of your lives."
    -- Explain that a list of statements will be read to the class. Further explain that the students should position themselves along the continuum depending on their response to each statement. On the left side of a classroom wall, the teacher should post a sign that reads STRONGLY DISAGREE and on the right side of the wall, post a sign that reads STRONGLY AGREE. Everybody should gather along the wall in the middle of these two signs.
    -- Emphasize that there is to be NO TALKING during this activity except when you choose individuals to explain their position on the continuum. THIS IS NOT A DEBATE. It is simply a forum to hear different views on various subjects. Also emphasize that you expect students to be respectful of each other, even if they disagree.
    -- Encourage students to physically move about on the human continuum if they feel it is necessary.
    -- After a statement has been sufficiently discussed, students should return to the middle of the continuum before hearing the next statement and starting over again.
    Following are some possible statements to be used during this activity:
    --All high school students should be randomly drug tested with parental consent.
    --Welfare recipients in Michigan should be drug tested monthly in order to continue to be eligible for benefits.
    --The drinking age in Michigan should be lowered to 18.
    --Assisted suicide should be illegal in Michigan.
    --Skateboarding should not be allowed on downtown area sidewalks.
    --Michigan should have the death penalty as a punishment for murder.
    --You should have to be 18 to buy tobacco products.
    --The minimum dropout age in Michigan should be lowered to 14.
    --Abortion should be illegal in Michigan under any circumstance.
    --Citizens of Michigan over 18 should be allowed to own and carry any type of registered firearm.
    --In Michigan, it should be illegal to discriminate against individuals in housing and employment strictly based upon their sexual orientation.
    --Convicted felons should lose their right to vote for the rest of their lives.
    --In Michigan, teens should only be permitted to work 10 hours per week during the school year until they reach 18.
    --Michigan should eliminate all forms of welfare to the poor.
    --Michigan should offer free health insurance to all people under the age of 18 if they are not covered under a parent's policy.
    --Michigan public school teachers should be allowed to post the Ten Commandments in any classroom.
    --Public high schools in Michigan should be allowed to provide condoms to individual students who ask for them.
    --Public high school teachers in Michigan should only talk about abstinence in Health class when discussing family planning.
    --High school science teachers in Michigan should not be allowed to discuss evolution.
    --Homosexuals in Michigan should be allowed to be legally married.
    --It should be illegal for people to marry individuals outside of their own race.
    --The age of consent for sex should be raised from 16 to 18 in Michigan.
    --Convicted rapists in Michigan should be sterilized.
    -- Upon concluding the activity, facilitate a group discussion in order to connect the continuum with core democratic values. Ask the students what values they were thinking about when they were deciding where to stand in response to certain statements. What core democratic values were in conflict? For example, was there a statement that made them choose individual rights versus the common good? Next, instruct students to return to their seats and make a list of THREE things that are most important to them personally or three of their top priorities in their life currently. This list might include such things as friends, family, school, religion, job, boyfriend, or girlfriend. Urge them to be honest with themselves. The lists should be collected at the end of class.
  5. Activity Journal Assignment
    -- The teacher should explain to the students that they are to keep a short journal of their activities until the next class.
    -- The students should record what they are doing EVERY HALF HOUR for the next day. Their entries should be long enough to briefly describe in general what they are doing and with whom they are doing it.
    -- Inform the students that the completed journals are to be collected at the start of the next class period. See supplemental materials for journal template.

DAY TWO SHORT SYNOPSIS:

  1. Small Group Work and Larger Discussion: Core Democratic Values in Michigan at Work and at Rest
  2. Activity Journal Analysis and Discussion
  3. Large Group Discussion and Written Reflections: Wrapping it All Up

DAY TWO DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. Small Group Work and Larger Discussion: Core Democratic Values in Michigan at Work and at Rest
    -- Divide the students into small groups to discuss the evidence that they have brought in from either newspapers or the Internet.
    -- You should provide each group with some focus questions to work on such as:
    Give everyone the opportunity to discuss their pieces of evidence with the group.
    Do the group members agree with the interpretation of the current events with respect to core democratic values?
    Which other core democratic values are involved in these current events? Which are in conflict?
    Focus on the core democratic values that are being violated in Michigan. Which seem to be violated the most in your estimation? Why do you think this is the case?
    If we truly believe in the core democratic values (remember, we decided yesterday that the ideals found in the beginning of the Constitution are pretty easy to agree with and stand behind...) why are they so often violated?
    -- After 20-30 minutes bring the students together in order to facilitate a class discussion. Indicate that the class discussion should primarily focus on the last two questions posed in their groups. Make explicit connections with the conversation of DAY ONE. At some point you should pose this question:
    Core democratic values are things that virtually no one would DISAGREE with; in fact, most people would say that adhering to them is a good idea in a democracy. If this is the case, why then, do so many violations occur?
  2. Activity Journal Analysis and Discussion
    -- Give the students 5 minutes to determine from their journal what they spent the MOST time doing for the waking hours of the last day. What are the top three activities? The teacher should have some students volunteer their answers to get a sense of what they have been up to for the past day.
    -- The students should then use their 'journal research' in order to figure out what is really most important to them. (Remind them of the old adage, 'Actions speak louder than words') From this "research" students are to construct a new list of priorities based strictly on what they have spent their time doing for the past day. Their first priority would be what they spent the most time doing over the previous waking hours and so on and so forth. This should take no longer than 5-7 minutes.
    -- Return the lists collected the previous day. Tell the students, "Compare the lists you made last class with the list you just made. Do they match? Why or why not? Please write a brief reaction to your discoveries." This should take no longer than 10-15 minutes.
    Provide students with these written questions in order to assist with their analysis:
    How do the events of your day compare to your list concerning what is most important to you?
    What would a typical weekend day look like if it were consistent with your original list of what is most important to you?
    Why doesn't it look that way?
    What values are you violating by not changing your behavior to make it more consistent with your priorities and ideals?
    What is your reaction to what you have learned about the connection or disconnection between your stated priorities and actual behavior?
  3. Large Group Discussion and Written Reflection: Wrapping it All Up
    -- Tell the students, "The purpose of the large group discussion is to tie everything from DAY ONE and DAY TWO together. When discussing these questions really think about the meaning of core democratic values and how they connect to the actions of your everyday life."
    -- During this discussion, pose some or all of these questions to the class:
    --What connections do you see between the activity on core democratic values at work in Michigan and the journal activity?
    --What connections can you draw to the human continuum activity? What seems to be the common thread among all of these activities?
    --Why do people agree on core democratic values in the abstract, but disagree when it comes to specific situations?
    --Are core democratic values still working in Michigan today? Take a stance and support your position with QUALITY evidence.
    --Are human beings generally consistent or inconsistent (How often do our values match our behavior? Are our opinions about different issues always in-line with one another? Can one be pro-life AND pro-death penalty? Can one be pro-choice AND anti-gun? How?)? Do we tend to be hypocritical as human beings? Why do you think this could be true?
    --Give some examples of hypocrisy from your own life (parents, teachers, siblings, friends...).
    --How do individuals deal with their own hypocrisy? Think about how you explained the disconnection between your stated priorities and your actual behavior. What does it mean to rationalize something? Why do we do this? What would happen if we didn't rationalize our inconsistencies?
    --Think about the human continuum activity. Which topics were the MOST controversial? Why? Do you think that people on either end of the spectrum could ever agree on real-life solutions to the particular issues? What would have to happen in order for that to occur?
    --Why would I ask you to participate in activities such as these in school? What do you think I wanted you to get out of these activities? How is what we have done in class over the past two days related to creating a better democracy? Explain.
    -- After sufficient discussion, assign the students to choose two or three of the aforementioned questions to write about. Depending on time, this can be homework or an in class assignment.

Author's notes:

I realize that this is a lot of material to cover in just two days time! I set it up this way so that teachers could adapt the lesson plan to their own needs. Feel free to rearrange the order of activities in order to suit your needs. You may also want to stretch this out into a three day lesson plan.

It is important to ask good leading questions during the discussions that allow students to push their thinking. Help them to draw explicit connections with the material over the two days.

Note to Scavenger Hunt and Discussion:

--During this discussion the teacher should try to lead the class to the conclusion that, in general, people can agree on the core democratic values in the abstract. Of course people would say that they are for the notions of justice, truth, diversity, and individual rights. However, when it comes to confronting core democratic values in specific situations, people often disagree. Sometimes this conflict occurs because many core democratic values come into play in a given situation and are actually in conflict! An example of this would be the abortion controversy. In this arena, the values of individual rights and liberty conflict with the value of life in complicated ways.

Note to Core Democratic Values in MI Detective Work: Large Group Discussion

--During this discussion, the teacher should try to complicate students' understandings of these events in terms of core democratic values. Help them to identify where values come into conflict and create controversy. For instance, outlawing assisted suicide affirms the value of life, but does it also interfere with the individual right to take one's own life? How do the pursuit of happiness and quality of life issues come into play here? Is religious freedom an issue in this situation? Should there be such a thing as freedom FROM religion?

An alternative way to tackle this discussion would be to start with a current event instead of the value and then map all of the values that are involved in the situation. Decide whether particular values are being upheld or denigrated.

Note to Continuum:

This activity can be as short or as long as you wish and is meant to make the very abstract notion of core democratic values more concrete and personal for students. It also provides a nice change of pace in the classroom and allows students to move around.
When facilitating this activity, ask students from various spots on the continuum to explain their positions as succinctly as possible. To create more substantive dialogue among students, you might consider asking other students to thoughtfully respond to what another student has just said (again, the student should respond to the IDEAS, not the individual presenting the ideas). Ask students to identify which values are beneath their opinions about various issues. Help lead students to the understanding that the MOST controversial topics are those in which core democratic values are in conflict. Emphasize that behind EVERY opinion is a value. Ask students to think about which values they are COMPROMISING by holding to a certain viewpoint.

Again, you can adapt this activity to be as long or as short as you would like. If you are short on time, you could select just a few statements to go over so that students get the main point. Or, you could turn this into an entire lesson. You may want to be explicit with your students regarding why you are doing this activity (ex: We're going to do this activity in order to make the core democratic values more realistic and easier for you to think about in relation to your own lives...). Students often appreciate it when teachers acknowledge such things.

Note on Journal analysis:

You may also want students to create an imaginary daily schedule for a weekend day that is actually consistent with their priority list. How is this schedule different from how they normally spend their weekends? Is there anything that they could do in order to make their priorities match their behavior? What is preventing them from doing this? Which values are being violated by NOT changing their behavior?

Notes on Wrapping it all up:

Now is the time to bring the last two days together through a large discussion and some individual student writing. Make connections with students between the conversations concerning (a.) inconsistencies between society's stated beliefs in the core democratic values and the actual behavior that occurs (as evident in the current events that students brought in) and (b.) students' personally stated beliefs and priorities concerning what's important compared to their actual behavior (actual time spent doing different activities). You will have to ask some good questions here in order for students to see the relationship between these two things.

Assessment strategies:

Assessment is described specifically in the procedures section of the lesson plan. The teacher will use various types of assessment over these two days. Various individual written components are built in throughout the lesson as well as opportunities to evaluate the level of discussion that students are able to engage in verbally. Teachers should be checking for understanding as well as how well students are able to connect the information over the two day time span, develop an argument, and use critical thinking skills. Rubrics for specific assignments can be found below. However, it is also left to your discretion if you want to grade any of the other written work, like the paragraphs, for example.

Available downloads:

  • Extended Response Essay Rubric, (24 K)
    This rubric lays out the requirements and grading criteria for the extended reponse essay portion of this lesson's assessment.
  • Group Discussion Rubric, (23 K)
    This rubric lays out evaluation criteria for students during a class discussion.

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