For September of 2007 I organized and facilitated a home school study group of 16 teens researching ‘Democracy, Freedom and the Right to Vote’ using a historical perspective. I enlisted the help of three other facilitators to cover the subject areas of literature, art and chemistry. As facilitators we met regularly to discuss the integration of each subject area into the main topics of voting, freedom and democracy. Some of the books covered in the literature section were 1984 by George Orwell, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau. Art projects included hand printing, journal making, campaign buttons and tie-dyed t-shirts. The main chemistry focus was on environmental issues. The workshop also included monthly fieldtrips to such places as The Freedom Trail in Boston, the New Hampshire Political Library and a court hearing for a case dealing with New Hampshire’s Right to Know Law.
As the workshop started off in September the presidential primary was already in full swing. Party candidates were showing up in local newspapers, airing television ads, and hosting websites. Participants chose candidates to follow, research and report on. We held discussions on political parties, issues and candidate experience. In December we took a fieldtrip to the New Hampshire Political Library to a display on past political campaigns and why New Hampshire should be the first primary in the nation. While immersing ourselves in the present political campaign we also reached back into history to learn about the beginnings of our country. We researched the founding fathers and mothers to learn about the roots of freedom and our ‘inalienable’ rights. Septembers field trip took us to Boston’s Freedom trail. In November we traveled along the road the Minute Men took at the start of the Revolutionary War.