Madison Memo For all those teaching the Constitution in America's classrooms

Issue: # 12

March, 2014

In This Issue

Fellows' Recommended Websites

African American Posters and Presentations

Edward M. Kennedy Institute

The Harlan Institute

History Matters

National Women's History Project

James Madison Fellows

Speak About the Fellowship Program

On-Line Gifts

temple

From the President, Lewis Larsen

Our Selection Committee meets shortly to choose the Madison Fellows for the Class of 2014. The number of applicants increased this year, and we thank each Fellow for your efforts to deepen the pool of qualified candidates. A special thank-you goes to our Madison Ambassadors: Fellows who presented at colleges and universities about the fellowship.

For 225 years, Americans have been the beneficiaries of the constitutional government created by men like Madison, Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson. As a Madison Fellow, you have dedicated your career to deepening secondary school students' understanding of this Constitution, and your contribution to the Education Fund will make it possible for more outstanding teachers to have the same impact on their students.
I encourage you to join in our campaign, 1789-2014: Honoring 225 Years of Constitutional Government.

We hope to see many of you at the National Council for History Education (NCHE) Conference being held next week in Albuquerque, NM. Several Fellows will present, and the Foundation will have a booth. If you would like to help at the booth, please email Colin at cbornmann@jamesmadison.com.

We are happy to announce that Michelle Holowicki, '10 (MI) has been selected as the 2014 Congressional Fellow. Michelle will spend one month this summer working in the office of Representative Dan Benishek (MI-1.)

Finally,next Sunday, March 16, is a date of great significance to all Fellows: the birthday of the Father of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, James Madison. Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

Focus on the Fellows

Robert Sandler, '04 (NY)

Having recently been honored by the National

Council for the Social Studies as the Secondary School Teacher of the Year, I now have the hindsight to recognize the crucial role my James Madison Fellowship played in my success.

In 2004, I attended the Summer Institute at Georgetown, studying with the nation's top constitutional scholars. I have been teaching AP US History for over fourteen years at Stuyvesant High School and regularly use the lessons from the Institute to enrich my teaching. Each year, students dress up in colonial garb and re-enact a state ratifying convention. Recently, an alumnus told me that the time he was "James Madison" and argued against "Patrick Henry" was the highlight of his high school career.

Pursuing a career in teaching history and government has also allowed me to participate in travel study tours to China, Japan and Germany. I've also benefited from other amazing professional development programs: Gilder-Lehrman's seminar about Lincoln at Oxford University and the National Endowment for the Humanities/Columbia University's summer seminar about New York City History. Inspired by this experience, I created a new elective for my school which explores the political, economic, social and cultural changes within the five boroughs of NYC during the past four centuries.

Teaching may not be a lucrative profession, but every morning I wake up excited to educate my students. I credit the James Madison Fellowship for inspiring me as a young teacher and putting me on the path towards a fulfilling and intellectually stimulating career.

Let us hear what you have been up to since receiving your Fellowship. Submit a brief article (150-200 words) along with a high-resolution photo to cgriffin@jamesmadison.com for possible inclusion in future newsletters.

Constitution Corner

Professor Kevin Hardwick

James Madison University

James Madison and Thomas Jefferson are rightly celebrated as architects of American religious freedom. But theirs was a position that dissented from contemporary orthodoxy. Most late-eighteenth-century Americans understood their faith to be bound up intimately in the success of republican governments. "Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion," warned George Washington in 1796. "Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

In 1784, Patrick Henry and other prominent Virginians proposed a Bill for Establishing Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion to the Virginia legislature. "The general diffusion of Christian knowledge hath a natural tendency to correct the morals of men, restrain their vices, and preserve the peace of society," argued the Bill's preamble. It was thus proper to expend public monies to support Christian religious instruction.

Madison and Jefferson disagreed. As Madison noted in his 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments -- echoing Virginia's revolutionary Declaration of Rights -- the state had no business intruding on matters of conscience. "Religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, he wrote, "can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence."

Madison wrote in support of Thomas Jefferson's Act Establishing Religious Freedom, which was signed into Virginia law in 1786. Jefferson's law condemned "the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others." In time, Madison enshrined this understanding of religious freedom in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Teaching Tips

Meghan Mikulkski, '02 (NJ)

In my Constitution unit, I emphasize that this document was a compromise between those who feared an excess of tyranny and those who feared an excess of democracy. To understand this point, my students participate in an activity that gets them moving and debating. I divide students into 15 pairs. (If you have fewer in a class, you can have some students work alone.) I give each pairing a piece of cardstock with a piece of information or a quote from this period. Students line themselves up with the student on the one end of the line representing the best example of an excess of democracy (as reflected in the quote or term) and on the other end, an excess of tyranny. For example, a representation of perceived tyranny could be a student holding the card that says "The Society of Cincinnati" while the student representing the excess of democracy could be holding "Shays Rebellion." Examples of students who wind up somewhere in the middle of the line include Federalist 10, State Constitutions, "We The People", Anti-Federalists, 3/5 Compromise, and The Virginia Plan.

Students defend their positions in line relative to others and adjust their positions as needed. A spirited discussion ensues, causing students to more deeply evaluate the ideology behind our Founding document. The ultimate goal is for the student representing the Constitution to end up smack in the middle of the line: the compromise between both sides of the debate!

Do you have a favorite pedagogical approach for teaching about the Constitution? Submit a brief article (150-200 words) to cgriffin@jamesmadison.com for possible inclusion in future newsletters.

Opportunities

Click on the links below to find out more about professional development opportunities for this summer. Many of the programs are free!

Eisenhower Academy Foundation for Teaching Economics

Gettysburg College Civil War Institute National Archives

Ashland Summer Seminars Colonial Williamsburg

Bill of Rights Institute George Washington's Mount Vernon

Consider applying for the American Civic Education Teacher Awards. The application is due April 1, 2014. Previous winners include Dave Alcox, '00 (NH), Richard Ochoa, '00 (UT), Mark Oglesby, '02, (MI), Milt Hyams, '04 (NV), Cheryl Cook-Kallio, '97 (CA), Kevin Fox, '06 (CA), and Chris Cavanaugh, '94 (IN).

Let us know about professional opportunities that would be of interest to Fellows. We plan to include 3-4 timely notifications in each edition of the newsletter. Information can be sent to cgriffin@jamesmadison.com

From the Foundation madison 2

Detailed information about the 2014 Summer Institute will be emailed this week. If you have not received an email by March 17, please email Colin Bornmann at cbornmann@jamesmadison.com.

Professor Rosemarie Zagarri (George Mason University) and Professor Gordon Lloyd (Pepperdine University) will be guest presentors during the 2014 Summer Institute.

The updated 2014 Online Fellows Directory is available in the Fellows' Log-In section of the website.

The 2014 edition of Madison Notes was mailed on Feb. 26. Please contact the Foundation if you have not received your issue. (A copy will also be available in the Publications section of our website.) Please send any updated contact information to akanakkanatt@jamesmadison.com.