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Tom Vontz: Hello, and welcome to Kansas State University’s courses on the Constitution.
My name is Tom Vontz, and I’m associate professor and director of the Center for Social
Studies Education here at Kansas State University. We’ve developed a series of six, one-hour
courses that focus on teaching and learning about the United States Constitution. My teaching
partner is: Robert Leming: Hi I’m Robert Leming. I’m
the National Director for the “We the People” program at the Center for Civic Education.
Tom Vontz: We, Bob and I, have both done professional development and workshops for thousands of
teachers across the United States, and as we have gained experience in providing professional
development, we saw a need for these courses and for their development, especially in an
online environment. Robert Leming: That’s right Tom. We’re
able to meet face-to-face with hundreds, maybe even thousands of teachers. But what we’ve
realized is that to even reach a broader audience, online courses are the way to go. And the
thing we want to make sure we accomplish is the fact that the content-driven courses that
we do live, if you will, in workshops and lectures and so forth - we want to make sure
that this happens with these online courses - that they are rigorous, that they are filled
with content-specific to obviously the courses we’re talking about - but then also interactive,
and the bottom line fun, as well as intriguing for the audiences.
Tom Vontz: Bob will be teaching three of the courses, courses number 1, 3, and 5, and I’ll
be teaching three of the courses, course 2, 4, and 6. Two of these courses will be offered
each month beginning in January of 2010. We did want to say by way of introduction to
all these classes, just a word or two about our philosophy going into these classes, so
you can get to know us a little bit better. Bob and I both come from a philosophy that
ideas matter, and political ideas matter a great deal. Over the course of history both
in the United States and in the world, ideas have been used to enslave and segregate and
discriminate, and ideas have also been used to liberate and connect.
Robert Leming: One point I would like to add to that Tom, is that the importance of the
fact that educators will be involved in these online courses. I like to say that kids are
victims to what teachers don’t know, and therefore its vital, it seems to me, that
the better prepared you are as a teacher the more your students then will perform in class,
obviously, and then as they become citizens they’ll know more, and be able to participate.
The bottom line here is that we’re trying to impact educators to understand these principles
that Tom has laid out and then apply them in our democracy today. Certainly the historical
foundations are important, but ultimately we live now and therefore, how we are going
to deal with our issues that are facing this country, and that I think is only done by
enlightened, responsible citizens. Tom Vontz: We hope that at the end of these
courses that you’re able to develop your own framework of powerful, important ideas
that can help you explore in a deeper way, your political landscape.
Bob Leming: You know Tom, you know as well as I do that the founders believed that if
you’re going to live in a democratic republic, that citizens must have a knowledge of the
constitution and the Bill of Rights and how the systems of the government work and then
their active role in that as participants in a democracy. It’s impossible without
those ideas and understanding of how government works. Therefore again, I would emphasize
the fact that we hope these online courses empower people to participate eventually in
their government, whether they’re voting, or whether they’re running for office, or
just sitting around a campfire or the fireplace discussing political ideas before and after
election times. Tom Vontz: Fantastic. These six online courses
correspond to the Center for Civic Education’s “We the People” program and also the National
Standards for Civics in Government. These are in many ways familiar ideas, but we hope
that we’ll be looking at those familiar ideas, asking you to consider these familiar
ideas in new ways and from different prospective - in ways that will help you really become
a better teacher of the foundational ideas of our government. These courses have the
following titles: Course number one, which is taught by Professor Leming, is called “Teaching
About the Theoretical Foundations of Government.” Course number two, which I’ll be teaching
is called “Teaching About the Historical Origins of Government in the United States.”
Course number three, taught by Professor Leming, is “Teaching About the Development of Constitutional
Principles.” Course number four, which I’ll be teaching, is titled “Teaching About the
Institutions of Government.” Course number five, again taught by Professor Leming, is
titled “Teaching About the Bill of Rights.” And the final course that I’ll be teaching
is a course called “Teaching About Citizenship in the United States.” So we’ll notice
that if you take all six classes, that you’ll really be exposed to the origins of ideas,
important ideas, how they’ve developed over time, and then ultimately why they remain
important in our country and in our society today. We hope that you enjoy this particular
class that you’re taking now and that you’ll decide to take other classes in the future.