Teaching the Declaration of Independence with hashtags 250 years later

2 days ago 10

Jessica Culver teaches her students to recognize past with hashtags. It is 1 of the innovative ways the societal studies teacher engages her classes of 11th and 12th people students successful agrarian Ozarks portion studying a 250-year-old subject: the Declaration of Independence.

Culver, who has taught civic acquisition for much than a decade, asks her students to deliberation astir the revolutionary play done the modern-day lens of societal media. A pupil wrote the tweet, "The DOI has been approved! #newcountry #finallyfree" to people the excitement felt successful the colonies aft the ratification of the founding document.

"How would we archer radical astir it if we were posting connected societal media? If you were making a TikTok astir the Boston Tea Party, what would you say?" Culver said she would inquire her students astatine Ozark High School successful Arkansas arsenic they learned astir the events that led to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. She said it helps make a transportation to past events that inactive signifier our lives today.

As the state celebrates the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence connected July Fourth, educators, civic organizations, leaders and citizens are uncovering ways to prosecute Americans astir the signing of the document, which guaranteed the caller nation's freedoms.

The declaration, chiefly written by Thomas Jefferson and signed by 56 people, including founding figures John Adams, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock and Jefferson. The opening enactment starts with "We clasp these truths to beryllium self-evident, that each men are created equal," which cements the principles connected which our authorities and our individuality arsenic Americans are based.

"Our nation's root story"

Understanding its value is cardinal for the adjacent procreation due to the fact that "it's our nation's root story, our shared inheritance," said Emma Humphries, the main acquisition serviceman astatine iCivics, a nonpartisan enactment founded by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to beforehand civic learning. More than 140,000 teachers usage iCivics worldly annually, and much than 9 cardinal students play its games each year.

The enactment launched 2 initiatives to bring the founding papers to life: Civic Star Challenge, which allows teachers from each 50 states to use for stipends for their classrooms, and the Investigation Declaration, an interactive crippled students tin play to larn astir the document.

Users dive into a crippled featuring "an planetary transgression of epic proportions" successful which criminals purpose to destruct documents related to freedom, ideology and rights. A bid of adventures mightiness prevention the Declaration of Independence from being harmed. But the constituent of the game, Humphries explained, is to amusement that these ideas aren't conscionable what's printed connected paper; it's the principles and the promises embedded successful the documents that endure forever.

"It's meant to instrumentality what tin consciousness truly adust and abstract and marque it a small goofy and meaningful and applicable for young people," Humphries said.

Julie Silverbrook, main learning and contented serviceman astatine the National Constitution Center successful Philadelphia, focuses connected ways to bring the full household unneurotic to larn astir the Declaration done games, play and media.

The halfway issued a peculiar variation of the Trivial Pursuit crippled for America's 250th anniversary, which she said was popular. She pointed to an interactive online platform for afloat annotated text, audio narration, archetypal papers images and videos to larn more. There's besides a podcast astir the ideas astatine the bosom of the founding document.

But the connection Silverbrook wanted to impart astir was that "July Fourth should not beryllium an endpoint — it should beryllium a starting line" for families funny successful learning astir the founding documents and ideals of America.

The intent of government

The Democratic Knowledge Project works with partners and schools crossed Massachusetts to make and aviator program and nonrecreational improvement astir learning astir the value of the Declaration of Independence.

Adrianne Billingham Bock, manager of program and implementation, told CBS News determination is "deep worth successful students learning, reading, exploring, uncovering the Declaration due to the fact that of its truly heavy civic concepts wrong it."

Through the connection of the Declaration of Independence, Billingham Bock said, students tin deliberation astir the intent of government, what it is expected to beryllium doing, what it tin beryllium doing and what choices tin beryllium made "if the authorities isn't surviving up to its values oregon isn't doing what it's expected to beryllium doing."

Culver, the Arkansas teacher, said she wants her students to effort to spot themselves successful the struggles of America's founders, truthful they tin recognize however hard it was to overthrow the British authorities and go a caller nation.

She said they perceive to celebrities speechmaking the Declaration and Constitution, and she brings successful extracurricular speakers to the classroom. Students constitute letters to their senators, learning however to prosecute respectfully with a "civic voice" and however to interact with leaders, Culver said. They besides look astatine ways they tin beryllium leaders themselves.

Students signifier a elector registration thrust from the region clerk's office. "That's the Declaration successful enactment successful their community," she said.

Young radical request to get retired and enactment successful civic work to consciousness what the Declaration of Independence meant — and inactive means today, she said.

"The Declaration is simply a continuous papers that they're surviving arsenic 17-year-olds successful Ozark, Arkansas," Culver said.

Join CBS for "The Great American Block Party 250," a primetime peculiar connected Saturday, July 4, hosted by CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil and Entertainment Tonight's Nischelle Turner, featuring unrecorded philharmonic performances, celebrations astir the country, and the largest fireworks amusement successful past successful the skies implicit the nation's capital. Tune successful July 4 astatine 8 p.m. ET connected CBS and watercourse it connected Paramount+ and CBS News 24/7.

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