Last quarter we memorized the Preamble to the Constitution. The Preamble contains 6 principles which we
use to help us make decisions about how our government should work and what it should do.
Principles are goals or values you believe are so important that you base your behaviors and choices on them. They can give us purpose and direction.
Of course, you might also think of a principle as a concept or idea that seems to be so universal that its considered "natural law," like the law of gravity or other laws of physics. Many Social Scientists including most of the founding fathers thought that people tended to follow certain patterns, have certain needs and drives so much that they talked about them as "natural rights," because they believed these weren't just random patterns, but universal concepts (AKA principles).
To better understand the 6 principles in the Preamble to the Constitution, Civics students will spend some time considering what their own personal principles are. Once they have, they'll summarize them into a personal mission statement in our "Personal Preamble Project" due Friday, January 17.
The conceptual filter I'd like students to keep in mind both while their considering their own principles and while studying the 6 principles in the Preamble are the 3 Core Democratic Principles which we studied in the Declaration of Independence:
- EQUALITY- "...that all men are created equal..."
- HUMAN RIGHTS- "...and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights..."
- THE SOCIAL CONTRACT- "...that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."
These thee principles would also be good filters when considering the concepts and principles contained in the amendments to the U.S. Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. Which we will be studying in Chapter 4.
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