Our All-school Study: “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”

As part of our study last year, the fifth and sixth grade students studied the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They translated parts of these documents into language younger students could understand. They then presented their translations of the introduction to the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble and the Bill of Rights to students in kindergarten through fourth grade. They also wrote a Jubilee Bill of Rights. For each right, they included a corresponding responsibility. They presented this Bill of Rights and responsibilities to students in first through first fourth grades, who contributed their ideas. The finished document has become our Student Handbook.

The fourth grade class spent the first half of the year focusing on the “Liberty” part of our study. They wrote three collaborative reports on events from the Civil Rights Movement: “Girard College and the Freedom Fighters”, “The Poor People’s Campaign” and “The Children’s Campaign in Birmingham”. These reports will be part of our Jubilee textbook of the twentieth century.
When we went on a trip to the Constitution Center, both groups saw exhibitions on their fields of expertise. The first, “Freedom Rising’, was about the history of the Constitution. The second, “AmericaIAM: the African American Imprint”, had a whole section on the Civil Rights Movement. When we got to the Constitution Center, we were told that our bags would have to be searched. Macire, a fifth grade student, said he was going to invoke his Fourth Amendment Right, and wanted to know whether they had a search warrant. What power there is in knowing our history and our rights!