Ideas and Advice from Teachers
Planning Experience: Kathryn King
Kathryn King is a Social Studies teacher at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. She has been teaching for 18 years. She has been teaching the course into which she incorporates the National Online Youth Summit for eight years. Ms. King holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Secondary Education and an M.A. in Special Education. She has participated in the National Online Youth Summit since its inception. She asked her students to write legislation to protect young people from harmful materials on the Internet for their final class project for the summit, based in and citing relevant legal precedents. Summit final class projects are intended to synthesize student learning, illustrate critical thinking, and must demonstrate factual knowledge. See an example of work from Ms. King's students.
Kathryn King:
The course into which the National Online Youth Summit is incorporated is called "Law and Ethics." It is designed to teach students about their political and legal systems. In Law and Ethics, students learn about different sources of law; examine trial and legislative processes; consider questions about principles such as the rule of law, limited government, federalism, and the balance of power; and analyze the rich, interesting issues generated by tension between fundamentally important but conflicting values such as liberty and equality, and the need for protection of both individual rights and the larger community's needs. In the process, I work to develop analytical thinking, reading, and writing skills, and to teach students how to conduct civil conversations about controversial issues.
Because Law and Ethics is largely principles-based, I use it as a frame for NOYS [National Online Youth Summit]. In the 2003 summit on youth access to the Internet, for example, my vehicles for teaching the concepts of police power, negative government, and the balance between civil liberties and the needs of society were the youth summit's background material on the First Amendment and censorship, including the readings and online discussion of Fahrenheit 451 [see 2003 summit "Guide to Student Activities" Student Activities 6 & 7]. My vehicle for teaching sources of law and the appellate process was the summit material on specific, challenged Congressional statutes and the outcomes of those challenges in the U.S. Supreme Court. To teach the legislative process, I chose one of the challenged Congressional Internet regulations and asked students to work their way backwards from its implementation, to its signing by the President, to floor debates, to the committee system, to the bill's introduction.
There has invariably been complete consistency among the summit's objectives, my course objectives, and Maine's state-mandated Learning Results. During the first few weeks of the semester, after the summit materials arrive, I do foundational work such as orienting students to law-related websites, setting ground rules for civil conversations, familiarizing students with the laptop computers we use for the summit activities, and teaching some foundational material that is not necessarily summit-specific. I also make sure that I have reviewed the alignment between the Maine Learning Results and my course objectives. When the summit materials arrive, I do a lot of intensive planning in order to line up my objectives with NOYS objectives, activities, and timelines. Once that work is done, my students and I proceed through the semester; and when the summit concludes, I finish the semester by taking up the concepts that either weren't addressed by the summit or that seemed more sensible to handle later in the spring. In other words, rather than Law and Ethics acting as a frame for the National Online Youth Summit, the summit has come to function as a frame, or as a superstructure, for my course.
"Law and Ethics" course description
