As Confucius said “True wisdom is knowing what you don’t know” and Socrates said “Wisdom is knowing what you don’t know.” This assignment is asking for the story of your personal search for information, as well as what you are learning about the topic in terms of what do you know vs what don’t you know.

Current Essential Question: How can I use my knowledge of American civics/politics/law to inspire others to think more critically about current events?

For the past four years, I feel as if I have been a passenger during parts of my study of U.S. politics; even though I had a good view of the road ahead, my teachers were always there to drive me to my destination.

Now I’m learning what it feels like to be in the driver’s seat.

It’s certainly been a big responsibility being in such a position. Not only do I have to be knowledgeable about my subject (which I already have a solid foundation of because of my experiences in Constitutional Law and Democracy in Action), but I also have to produce content that is both digestible and comprehensive. 

This proved to be a tricky balancing act when I designed my first activity, which helps students to get to know their elected representatives. My major decision with the activity was how many representatives I wanted to include in the activity. I knew that I wanted to show representatives on the local, state, and federal levels, but there were so many options listed on My Reps. I initially thought the activity would be most thorough if it covered all of them, including positions like city public advocate and state comptroller (positions that I did not even know existed). However, this would mean that students would have to research information on around 17 different representatives. I quickly realized that this would not be an effective way to educate students, as they could easily be overwhelmed with the amount of work that goes into such a research project. I can imagine that such an assignment could feel like busy work for some, and if students are asking themselves “what’s the point of this?” then I know that I have not done my job well.

After my first week of working on my Senior Project, I must keep in mind that I phrased my essential question as a “how” question.  To improve my approach to the “how” part of my question, I will need to talk to some teachers about how they approach it. This includes teachers that I have had in high school since their approaches to the “how” of teaching have had a profound effect on me as a learner. But an activity designed for high schoolers may not work so well with younger students, so getting the perspectives of middle school history teachers is also key. In addition to the history of voting rights, I think it would be crucial for me to explore research in sociology/education to find out what styles of teaching (generally) appeal to students. Answering my question is not going to be a matter of me knowing an abundance of information about the U.S. electoral system. The content will be secondary to the presentation—the “how.”