Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities

Letters Archive

Fall 2001, Vol. 10, No. 1 (requires Adobe Acrobat) Memory, Identity, and Political Action 2001/2002 Fellows Vanderbilt Alumnus to Present the 2001 Harry C. Howard Jr. Lecture We the People.... The Citizen and the Constitution 2002/2003 Fellows Program Deirdre McCloskey to Speak in the 2001/2002 Gender and Sexuality Lecture Series

We the People.... The Citizen and the Constitution

The Warren Center hosted a week-long professional development program entitled “We the People.... The Citizen and the Constitution” for educators from across Tennessee July 7-12, 2001. The program, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, helps teachers find creative ways to educate students on the history and principles of constitutional government. Constitutional scholars from a variety of disciplines at Vanderbilt led the series of workshops. Those scholars included: William James Booth, professor of political science; Samuel T. McSeveney, professor of history, emeritus; John Goldberg, professor of law; Lisa Bressman, assistant professor of law; and James F. Blumstein, Centennial Professor of Law.
“Teachers can overcome many of the preconceptions that make civic education a challenge by encouraging students to learn about and debate the same issues faced by our nation’s founders,” said Mary Catherine Bradshaw, Hillsboro High School American Studies teacher and adjunct instructor in education at Vanderbilt. “This hands-on exercise encourages participants to think about the alternatives and what it means to live in a free-society.” Bradshaw, a veteran of the “We the People” team, served as a mentor teacher for the workshop.

The first sessions started with a simulated congressional hearing by Bradshaw’s Hillsboro High School “We the People” team. Participating teachers conducted their own mock congressional hearing as a final exercise. Following the program, teachers will work with students in their schools to conduct similar mock hearings on issues debated at the constitutional convention in 1787. Those schools will then be eligible to enter a class in the annual “We the People” national competition with final rounds held in Washington D.C. in the spring of 2002.

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For more information, contact the Center's executive director, Mona C. Frederick.

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