You’re a mature, emotionally developed, formally trained lawyer.I think you got me mixed up with RightwardHo. I'm not a lawyer. I'm a copier engineer.
Imagine doing this in, say middle school, when civic knowledge and attitudes aren’t fully formed.I can imagine it. My brother, who went to private school (I went to public) did problems like this in middle school. As I said, I did this in AP American Government in high school. I don't think middle school is too young to do this kind of thought experiment.
It’s easy for me to see this assignment as a “Delphi technique” vehicle for a discussion limiting a number of important Amendments—say, First, Fourth, Second, and Fifth. Throw in the Tenth, too, as this is a centrally organized educational program designed by people who clearly favor centralization over leaving any meaningful power to the States.Just my opinion, but I think you're reading too much into it.
Perhaps you’re right... Sorry about the gratuitous professional insult (lawyer).
But, I also have a strong feeling that having a centralized detailed curriculum is a lever for indoctrination. I think that education should be developed at the state level. Also, a centralized curriculum lets the educational methods theorists run wild with crazy teaching theories.
This is particularly true in mathematics, where I’ve seen them teaching fourth graders extremely involved and slow methods of division, when most of the kids simply need to learn arithmetic. I went to a PTA meeting and remarked to the teacher, “This is silly. The method you’re teaching is very cumbersome, and is effectively synthetic division. However, it’s about five years early for these kids, who have no idea of what polynomials are, and need the basic computational tools of arithmetic in order to eventually be able to work more complex problems.” He said something about modern methods.