The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dawson students learn how democracy works
Ninth-graders are given 90 minutes to craft a constitution.
At a quarter before eight on a misty Monday morning, Dawson County Junior High School social studies teacher Jim Guy gathered his ninth grade students in the school’s dimly lit auditorium.
Guy — dressed in a coat, tricorn and breeches — ushered the students to a circle of tables draped in green cloth. They were holding their own constitutional convention, a re-creation of how America’s founding document came to be. Each of his three classes had 90 minutes to try to create and ratify a constitution to govern the classroom before the next group of students arrived for their convention.
Guy has held classroom constitutional conventions at Dawson since 2017, which has helped students better understand how government should work, and stay awake through his lessons about the Constitution.
“It teaches students that the government we have right now is only as good as the people who are in it, and that you’re good enough to be one of those people in it,” Guy said.
Proposed amendments included more opportunities to express thoughts during class, and the right to have other students’ full attention during presentations. Other students wanted the ability to pick a study buddy to help prepare for tests, or time to stretch during their 90-minute class period.
Students debated how the amendments should be worded and their finer details. A particularly heated discussion broke out during the third convention about whether or not doodling in class should be included, and another group went back and forth about the number of bathroom passes they should get each week. Guy would occasionally chime in to ask questions, but let the students take control.
After doing their part for classroom democracy, each section of 20 or so students raced to their next class.
Guy has been hosting the convention for his social studies classes since 2005 when he taught in Niceville, Florida. In a desperate attempt to keep students engaged, he told them he would dress up as George Washington and let them hold a convention to decide rights for themselves in the classroom.
This year, Guy held three successive mock conventions — one for each section of his American government class. The students elected a president to lead the process on Friday, as well as two notetakers, whom Guy calls “James Madisons” in honor of the Founding Father who recorded the actual convention. Students had to vote on each amendment and pass at least 10 to make a constitution. The completed constitutions are displayed on poster boards on their classroom wall. Guy said students are successful about 85% of the time. All three classes managed to pass their constitutions.
Guy emphasized to students that the point of the activity wasn’t to create self-interested rules, but rather to think about how they could build a classroom environment that would benefit everyone’s learning, just as the founders were tasked with making a document that would benefit an entire nation for years to come.
“(America’s founders) were not thinking of themselves. They were thinking of who? Future generations,” Guy said.
Every student was required to present at least three amendments, but many presented more. Other students were shy, but Guy was always nearby to encourage them to speak their minds and stand up for what they wanted in the classroom.
“You have to speak your mind if you want to be heard in life,” Guy said to his students at the third and final convention’s opening. “It’s the only way.”