Embedded Files
Exploring Our Needs
Exploring Our Needs
We will be starting this year by exploring the many needs that exist in our communities and how each of those needs can impact some people more than others. We will begin this exploration by focusing on our immediate community (our classroom and school) and then broaden to our needs of people throughout our country and our world. Our work will focus on a variety of types of needs, including:
We will be starting this year by exploring the many needs that exist in our communities and how each of those needs can impact some people more than others. We will begin this exploration by focusing on our immediate community (our classroom and school) and then broaden to our needs of people throughout our country and our world. Our work will focus on a variety of types of needs, including:
- Basic Resources (food, water, shelter, etc.)
- Emotional Supports & Interpersonal Relationships
- Social & Economic Supports
- Health and Safety Supports
After we have established a basic understanding of what a society's needs are, we will begin to learn how we can better meet those needs in just and equitable ways. Our studies will explore how the United States has attempted (both successfully and unsuccessfully) to meet these needs in the past, and how those successes and shortcomings have shaped our modern American society. By making connections between the past and the present, we can determine the best pathway forward for the future.
After we have established a basic understanding of what a society's needs are, we will begin to learn how we can better meet those needs in just and equitable ways. Our studies will explore how the United States has attempted (both successfully and unsuccessfully) to meet these needs in the past, and how those successes and shortcomings have shaped our modern American society. By making connections between the past and the present, we can determine the best pathway forward for the future.
Injustice, Protest, and Revolution
Injustice, Protest, and Revolution
In this unit, we will explore the injustices experienced by the colonial people in North America that led to the American Revolutionary War. We will examine the various ways that white colonists fought back against the perceived tyranny of the British government and draw connections between similarities of that period in American history with modern protests and social movements. We will also explore the perspectives of free Black people, enslaved people, and indigenous people, whose stories are often left out of this period of history.
Establishing Rights, Government, & Power Structures
Establishing Rights, Government, & Power Structures
In this unit, we will explore the formation of American democracy and the basic rights outlined in the U.S. Constitution, specifically in the Bill of Rights. We will examine how injustices experienced under British rule informed the work of the founders of the government and inspired them to include language specific to balancing power and acknowledging essential human rights. Also, we will critically analyze the power structures created by this newly formed government and identify how those structures impacted, and continue to impact, the groups of people who were marginalized by the resulting system.
Race in America
Race in America
In this unit, we will explore the role that race has played throughout the history of the United States. We will explore many topics related to race and race relations, including:
the origins of the concept of race
the ways in which the concept of race was used to justify the practice of slavery and the belief in "Manifest Destiny"
the reasons why race, specifically slavery, caused the American Civil War
the ways in which U.S. laws have been manipulated to continue race-based oppression and exploitation throughout the periods of Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era
Page updated
Report abuse