You're one of 55 Delegates A FREE lesson your learners will always remember! A New DVD Film, Death March from Bataan to Manchuria: Raising a Survivor’s Voice It's the summer, 1787, the Constitutional Convention. You go to Philadelphia. You're one of 55 delegates. The delegates include George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Ben Franklin. The Articles of Confederation had failed. The goal: a new Constitution. Contradictions and discrepancies have emerged. The ideas behind the Declaration of Independence and the first Constitution clash with the new American government, laws, and freedoms. Who wants any one person or entity to rule? No one. Yet, the orginal Constitutional ideas need tweaking. Are you a radical or a conservative? You cannot worry about the labels others might place on you. How do you go about solving America's BIG problems? America's problems come whopper sized. For one thing, America falls in the category of continent. Since Britian is an island, known as Great Britian, you wonder if one of the delgates will try to name America, since it's a continent, something along the lines of, Mega America. Your first step, recognize the problems. What did the creators of our first Constitution mean by the stipulations “liberty” and “freedom?” Do you detect a discrepancy in the ideas of natural freedom and the ideas under American government? Next you fully realize that you cannot correct the problem(s) alone. You gather the other Constitutional Convention delegates around you to help figure things out. A Vulcan mind meld might come in handy. You imagine George Washington repeating the Vulcan mind meld chant to the Constitutional Convention delegates: "My mind to your mind...my mind to your mind." Neither the Constitutional Convention delegates nor your students own the mind melding Vulcan powers of Star Trek's Mr. Spock. Therefore the delegates have to write the problem(s) down. You pick up a quill and write problem statements. Here are four, out of the many, problem statements: 1. Why did the Articles of Confederation fail? 2. How do we make self-government work? 3. How do we make government just and practical enough to never have to worry about civil revolt, yet reliable enough to avoid global wars? 4. Should the Supreme Court interrpret the Constitution and hold the power to overrule Congress? What happens if ideologically inflexible justices become Supreme Court Justices? You and your Constitutional Convention collaborators toss different problem-solving theories around. The group explores similar theories about similar problems of self-determination and what it implies for a government to control, but with the peoples' okay, and still include equal protection of the law. Some Constitutional Convention delegates challenge proposed theories and begin to write Article III of the Constitution establishing rules about the Supreme Court. You and your associates conduct conferences, recap information, and bring all the best and pertinent theories presented thus far. No one seems absolutely in command; logic must guide you. You provide reference materials to the delegates during the inquiry. You and the other delegates decide on rules to follow to expedite analytical thinking. More questions are asked to confirm the discrepancy under investigation, and the distinct differences, inconsistencies, and irregularities that make the dilemmas a crisis for the country. You organize more Constitutional Convention delegate meetings where you and different groups read over collected data. All of you ask questions; the questions experiment verbally with ideas. More questions are asked about important variables. You ask, "How do we know which truth will bring more equality?" You and the delegates ask more hypothetical and casual questions, and argue about almost everything. You and the delegates review, begin to formulate an explanation, and reach a probable hypothesis. If America's Founders and delegates to the Constitutional Convention had strived to save only the fillet part of the Constitution, so to speak, instead of picking the bones clean of possibilities, the "United" States would exist only in our dreams. Nearly every problem contains bones. The delegates of the Constitutional Convention vented with real life, impressive in their boldness and effect on our lives today. To keep us safe from the dangerous structures and processes (bad bones) our Founders engineered the removal of the unneeded bones from the meat of our problems, as a nation. They advised us through their own brand of rights to equal protection under the law. They advised us through their determination for advocacy, though imperfect, even for the most vulnerable people. They advised us through their own trial-and-errors to act methodically and logically, with modest emotion. They advised us through the measures they used, to take those methodical steps devoid of preconceived opinions or rigid prejudgment, or self-serving motives to develop knowledge by framing questions, by collecting data, and by testing hypothetical answers. Unlike those before them, America's Founders spread open the rules, laws, and powers of control, the very "government body," and fleshed out painful details, under the lights, and exposed the substance of buried mysteries. Just as your students incrementally uncover the tools to reevaluate clues, issues, or prior discrepant event inquiry lesson assessments, America's history remains an excellent example of how Americas learned to power problem solve, democratically. We own the rights and abilities to correct errors. Our Founders determined governments' performance and quality by using inquiry instead of harsh and unfair inquisition. As a result, we stand able to take actions based on facts investigated, analyzed, and evaluated, first by individuals, then by teamwork. Back to main Power Problem Solving What are America's Strongest Links? Teachers and Power Problem Solving Inquiry and Democracy A Revolution in Learning by Jean K. Bruce Free Discrepant Event, Friends, anti-smoking & tobacco Professor William C. Bruce Jean K. Bruce Mindtronics! and Inquiry Alive!

George Washington