In a former life, I was a lawyer. I spent three grueling years in law school, studying for the most difficult exam I have ever taken in my entire life. I lost sleep, time, and countless relationships preparing for what I thought was really important, and was going to change my life. It did change my life, but not in the way a new law school graduate ready to take on the world would have expected. For me, the endless disappointments that lay in my path through law school and into a legal career, lead me straight back to where I had started, education. So, I do not regret those lost years in my life, it was the most valuable education I have earned thus far in my life and who knew, that in an unexpected place it would count for something again. As new social studies teachers, we were recently discussing the importance of the Supreme Court and teaching landmark cases to our students. I absolutely agree with the necessity and importance of teaching landmark supreme court cases to high school students, but I urge educators to proceed with caution.
As teachers, we worry about misconceptions and uncorrected mistakes leading our students to make quick, inaccurate judgments. For me, this fear multiplies by the 1000s when it comes to misconceptions or incorrect information regarding supreme court holdings. Supreme Court opinions are the supreme law of the land, they have been misinterpreted and misapplied countless times, unfortunately, how often are those times corrected? So many people have interpreted the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 14th amendment case law to mean what they want it to mean. And who can blame them? it is complicated case law, if it were easy, there would not be a string of cases cited in every supreme court holding dictating precedent and history. This brings me to my point, as teachers, it is noble to want to teach the due process clauses, or any other landmark constitutional right and decision, but we need to be supremely careful when we do so. Supreme Court cases are not decided in a vacuum, they are not simple, they are not black and white; as teachers, we need to ensure that we do not teach them in a vacuum, that we do no strip them down to meaningless to make them simple, and that we impress upon our students just how grey supreme court case law is. As teachers before we make the decision to teach something as important as the supreme law of the land, we better well informed, knowledgeable and really understand what we are teaching, and why we are teaching it. This is not meant to discourage teachers from teaching our students about these landmark cases, as informed, effective citizens, it is our duty to arm our students with this knowledge. My words are just statements of caution. Do it correctly if you are going to do it. And for those on the administrative end, proper professional development regarding supreme court opinions and cases, is absolutely necessary for all of your educators, not just social studies teachers.
I agree with your comments, the Supreme Court and their landmarks cases can be very complex. To get into all the complexities of a case can take a great deal of time. With your legal expertise would you recommend teaching one case in great detail so that the students really get an understanding of the Supreme Court and how they work or trying to cover several cases about the same topic to look at how interpretations and decisions of the court can change over time? Also what type of professional development would you recommend so that teachers don't leave students with misconceptions about the Supreme Court?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments Jeanine! I think that the first case you would teach on the Supreme Court should be in great detail, that lesson could be taught as a direct instruction so that students understand how the process works, how to break down a case, etc. I think after that, once the foundation has been laid, i would teach the most recent supreme court case on a particular issue rather than a progression. In a supreme court decision, the author will recount the entire history and progression of the case law to show how they arrived at the current decision. You could have your students track the procedural history and the precedents from the most recent case and they would be able to see the progression.
ReplyDeleteAs far as professional development goes, I was not able to find anything that i thought might be useful for teachers in a high school classroom. I will keep looking! Although, if you want to do a longterm project with your kids regarding the supreme court, look into the Innocence Project. There is a local chapter in DC and their goal is to use DNA testing to overturn criminal convictions. Its a great study in supreme court law and raises tons of ethical issues!