22. ABA CONDUCTS INNOVATIVE LAW-RELATED PROGRAMS FOR HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS AND STUDENTS
The ABA Division for Public Education conducted a number of innovative law-related education programs for high school teachers and students during 2005-06.To highlight just three:
More than 550 students in 25 schools from 15 states participated in the eighth annual National Online Youth Summit held from January through April 2006. Using Web conference software, the online summit is a model instructional program for secondary teachers and their students. Classrooms, students, and teachers from around the country participate in a “virtual” community online to discuss timely and important issues for youth. The 2006 topic was “Law in an Age of Terror.” Participating students completed sequential activities, interacted with legal experts in message boards, and developed research projects, which explored the USA PATRIOT Act, National Security Agency surveillance of persons within the United States, global terrorism laws, terrorism suspects/detainees and the courts, and public opinion about the war on terror.
The division and the Federal Judicial Center cosponsored a summer teachers institute on “Federal Trials and Great Debates in U.S. History” in Chicago in June 2006. The aim of the institute was to deepen teachers’ knowledge of the federal judiciary and of the role the federal courts have played in key public controversies that have defined our constitutional and other legal rights. Sixteen high-school teachers participated in the Institute. They intensively studied three landmark federal trials: the Sedition Act Trials of 1798-1800; Chew Heong v. United States and the Chinese Exclusion Acts; and Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board and the desegregation of New Orleans schools. Participants then developed curriculum to accompany each of these landmark federal trials.
The division developed a new Dialogue program for 2005/2006 on the separation of powers, including development of a resource booklet that features historical and contemporary discussions on the separation of powers, accompanied by focus questions to facilitate interaction with students. More than one million students and members of the public have participated in Dialogue programs since its inception in 2002 as the “Dialogue on Freedom,” an initiative conceived by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Taking up Justice Kennedy’s call for engagement with our nation’s young people, lawyers and judges across the country have visited classrooms across the country to discuss constitutional and legal principles with students. The Division for Public Education provides assistance to bar associations and courts, as well as individual lawyers and judges, in conducting Dialogues in their schools and communities. It also helped organize demonstration programs featuring ABA and other leaders of the profession, such as the Dialogue on Separation of Powers conducted by ABA President Michael Greco and Arizona Supreme Court Justice Ruth McGregor at the National Law-Related Education Leadership Seminar in Phoenix in January 2006.
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