today my non-AP students got to explore part of the First Amendment with me. It was in the form of a discussion, with me asking questions to see how they responded, for example
What is speech?
They might say talking, and we would go beyond. We would get to the difference between pure speech and symbolic speech when I would ask "If you burn an American flag because you are protesting the government can they arrest you for that?"
To help them understand that the protections of speech are against government action I would ask "what if you worked for Sears, were repairing someone's washing machine, they had Rush Limbaugh on the radio and you made a nasty remark. When you got back to the office the customer had called and complained and you were fired. Was your freedom of speech violated?"
By now regular readers of my writing on teaching probably have a sense of how I try to teach, to involve the students. I can think of nothing more important than having them understand their rights and how they work, including the fact that those rights are not absolute. It is far more effective to have them wrestling with such questions.
Let me go back to yesterday. We took time to walk through the three-part test of Lemon v Kurtzman for government involvement with religion (particularly in schools):
- Is the government's purpose secular?
- Does the government action neither favor nor disfavor religion?
- Does the government action avoid excessive entanglement with religion?
If the answer to any question is no, that government action is probably unconstitutional, usually for violation of the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment.
While under O'Connor that test has been somewhat modified, it serves to help students understand how the Supreme Court has addressed some issues, even in the past, and how it might address some now. We can then go through scenarios
.. from Everson, whether NJ could provide buses to transport students to Catholic schools
... from Engel v Vitale, whether the NY State Board of Regents could mandate recitation of a daily prayer they had crafted
... can a coach lead athletes in a sectarian prayer before or after a game?
... can a team captain do it???
And so on.
Similarly today with speech. We explored the "clear and present danger" standard established in Schenck - and I can assure you that my students will remember that Holme's dictum was that you cannot FALSELY shout fire in a crowded theater - and we explored how the limits of that have changed over time - which is why someone like Glen Beck can get away with some of his really outrageous statements.
We got to "fighting words"
and we surely got to defamation - libel and slander - and the distinction between defaming a public person versus a private person. As a result of our discussion, I think my students begin to understand that spreading rumors about someone is not merely rude, it can result in financial penalties, in this case possibly paid by the parents to the parents of a student about whom they had spread rumors.
"What if it's true, Mr. B?" Well, truth is an absolute defense against a charge of defamation, but if you obtained the information you are spreading improperly you might still be facing penalties for invasion of privacy or possibly criminal sanctions for hacking into non-public information.
I want my students to understand that the question of rights is important, that rights are not unlimited.
They have freedom of speech at school, according to Tinker v Des Moines, but schools have an obligation to maintain a safe and orderly learning environment, which means some things they might say or do in a shopping center are not protected speech or action within the school.
This is when teaching matters most to me. What my students are learning is real, it directly affects them, they are not learning it merely to pass a course or to pass a test.
Today I felt as if I did some good.
Hope you don't mind my sharing. After all, I had not yet done a diary today.
Peace.