Teaching the First Amendment p.

By: Mark Fitzgerald

JOURNALISTS OFTEN SAY they know they are doing a good job if people on all sides of an issue are angry at them.
However, First Amendment Congress executive director Julie Lucas says she knows the group's Education for Freedom classroom program is doing a good job because people with widely varying political views are happy with it.
"We've had universal acceptance by people representing all sorts of viewpoints," she said of the kindergarten- through-high school curriculum.
"I'll give you an example: Parents who are home-schooling their kids, representing more religiously oriented people, are buying the program ? and recommending it to their friends ? and the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] . . . and other groups who certainly have different views have also endorsed it."
That's quite an achievement, given that the curriculum deals with some of the thorniest issues in school and society: flag-burning, library censorship, school prayer and abortion picketing, among others.
Education for Freedom was created by the First Amendment Congress to be the most comprehensive series of lesson plans available for teaching the rights and responsibilities inherent in the 45-word amendment.
The First Amendment Congress ? composed of news organizations ranging from the Associated Press and United Press International to the Newspaper Association of America and the Newspaper Guild ? first introduced the program two years ago. Just this March, it introduced a videotape and video guide for the curriculum.
"With most kids ? unfortunately ? getting their information from video, I knew we needed something like this," Lucas said.
Perhaps surprisingly, some of the most enthusiastic users of the videotape have been TV news organizations, she said.
In the Denver area, Lucas said, "Television media people have been taking it to classrooms they visit because it makes more understandable the reasons the media seem to be clashing with the government."
Newspaper groups have also been enthusiastic about the program.
Most of the funding for the project, in fact, came from the Knight Foundation, with additional contributions from the Hearst Corp., the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, Scripps Howard, the Star Tribune/Cowles Media Co. and the Times Mirror Foundation.
"What we've found from news media people is there is a great need for materials that educate children ? the future voters and citizens ? about the First Amendment," Lucas said.
Many of the lesson plan's activities are drawn from the newspaper, but Education for Freedom has a larger aim than the typical Newspaper in Education program.
"These lessons fill a great void in the education of young people," Lucas said.
"It is not enough to teach them the basic constructs of our government. They also need to learn their own individual responsibilities in assuring that self-government endures.
"They need to learn about tolerance for differences, that the answer to speech we may hate is not to suppress it but to submit it to the test of other views, that the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution are part of everyone's daily life and that, unless all of us understand and support them, they will not survive into the future."
Education for Freedom begins with simple classroom activities for children in the primary grades.
Birthday cards, for example, are used to introduce the concept of freedom of expression. Separate lesson plans target older elementary schoolchildren and those in middle schools and high schools.
All the lessons are designed to relate First Amendment freedoms to a student's day-to-day life.
In one exercise, for instance, students choose a single right guaranteed under the First Amendment that they must give up for a time.
Nearly all the lessons, too, involve a "clipping assignment" directing students to a newspaper.
The most popular lesson appears to be "The Privacy Triangle," which takes its name from a concept John Marshall Law School law professor George Trubow outlined in an address to a First Amendment Congress seminar about the conflicts among the press, individuals and government that are posed by the right to know and the right to privacy.
In the classroom exercise, students take the viewpoint of journalists, individuals and government while considering such touchy cases as a murder trial in which both sides want a gag order or a news agency that wants access to an FBI document in order to write an expos? of a rock star.
Because of issues such as these, Education for Freedom's teaching guide includes a section entitled "Will this curriculum create controversy?"
"Teachers who have not previously presented controversial issues may find the idea of doing so intimidating, if not downright scary," the guide says.
The guide suggests preparing students to expect controversy and includes rules barring personal attacks, slogans and interruptions.
"While all students should have a chance to be heard, students' rights not to express their opinions when personal values are involved should be respected. Some issues may simply strike too close to home to be discussed with comfort," the guide says.
Education for Freedom has sold quite well despite almost no marketing efforts, First Amendment Congress executive director Lucas says.
While the curriculum appears self-explanatory, teachers continue to ask for more training programs, Lucas says.
For information about Education for Freedom, contact Julie Lucas, First Amendment Congress, University of Colorado at Denver Graduate School of Public Affairs, 1445 Market St., Suite 320, Denver, Colo., 80202. Phone: (303) 820-5688.