Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Teaching the Charter to youth

I have volunteered to give a presentation to a group of Boy Scouts on the Canadian Constitution, and especially the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It's an intimidating project. It's hard to pare down volumes of legislation, commentary and case law into a 1-hour presentation. I've been thinking that I will probably provide a very brief background after playing a role-play game (a la Lord of the Flies, perhaps?) where the youth will startup a new country that has no historical law, people coming from all different countries and ethnically backgrounds, and a wide open space to live in. It's hard to imagine that this is the situation that our fore-fathers faced. I think they did a pretty bang-up job myself, although many of my colleagues would beg to differ. I don't recall learning too much about the Constitution or the Charter in my grade-school years. Do you? How would you approach this challenge? It's one thing to teach it to adults who have some background...I think it's great that these boys want to learn about the law, and have some interest in our history. I did find a great resource - a Youth Guide to the Charter, which would probably be a welcome bit of information for any first year Canadian law student. Happy reading.

3 comments:

  1. You may want to try an analogy with a playground or a park. Hobbes' thought experiment doesn't seem so far fetched when you frame it from the perspective of a child's playground. Although far simpler in scope than our need for a constitution and a charter, the socialization mechanisms that children develop to "govern" themselves on the playground are essentially the same mechanisms societies rely on in their own development.

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  2. Anonymous7:13 am

    kind of an unrelated question. but i am completely lost in the lsat registration process. i do have your book but the june 15 date is fast approaching. am i too late? where do i go to register? what # do i call?
    please help me
    - confused student

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  3. As you did not leave any way of contacting you, I will leave a comment here to respond to your question. You can access LSAT Dates & Deadlines at http://www.lsac.org/LSAC.asp?url=lsac/test-dates-deadlines.asp. The next test is actually Monday, June 12, 2006. The deadline for registration was May 9. Late registration had a deadline of May 10-19, 2006. Sorry. The following test is Saturday, September 30, 2006, and the deadline for registration is August 29, 2006. Late registration is from August 30 - Sept 8. You can register either by mail or online or by telephone.

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