The First Shall Be The Last.

The teachers have once again become the students--and it was an enlightening, exciting, and exhausting first day of informing my future curriculum. On the first day of the ASNE Reynolds Institute at the Walter Cronkite School for Journalism and Mass Communication, Mr. Ken Paulson of the First Amendment Center proved a perfect lead-off speaker. Paulson's contributions to the First Amendment Center and the 1forAll.us campaign fueled a delightful, informative, and humorous re-education and re-thinking of the First Amendment, driving home to the group just how important the discussion of the First Amendment, and the history behind it (as well as the way it has been taught throughout history), truly is relevant to our contemporary, tech and consumer-savvy students with respect to its utility and the laws surrounding it. 


Like other teachers in the audience, I found Mr. Paulson's "tests" that he proctored throughout his presentation humbling and inspiring--with great history lessons all around. The stunner, as other posts have mentioned, was the "only 2%" of Americans' abilities to identify all five facets statistic, reinforcing the urgent need for teachers to include the discourse of the freedoms students (and the average American) often take for granted. I was also particularly intrigued by the images of early textbook entries and the role of Bowman Trading Cards' "comics" on "this godless communism" (while concurrently discovering how bad the iPad is at the Instagram-less photograph, as seen here): 

Personally, I cannot wait to begin this 1forAll.us unit in my classroom in the future, and I can already hear my co-workers complaining about Mr. Roberts "inspiring" students to exercise their rights during those pesky morning announcements...


Cody Roberts
Milby High School
Houston