Equality for All?

 

Imagine yourself in the following scenarios:

• You have been pulled over by police officers three times within the last year. You were not speeding or breaking any laws. What can you do?
• Your right to education has been taken away.  You are no longer able to go to school. What can you do? -- if you want to do anything at all. . .
• While you are perhaps enjoying your days off of school you are ironically hit by a school bus.  Your parents don't have health insurance and the government will not help you.  What can you do?
• You are working at a video store and your manager wants to talk to you about giving you a promotion and a  wage increase.  You must go to your managers house alone on a Friday night.  The manager makes a pass at you and says that your promotion may depend on how the evening goes. What can you do?
• You are taken to a place in the country by two young people.  You are strapped to a tree and beaten to the point of death because you have a lifestyle and opinions that are different from theirs.  What can you do?
• Your land was taken away from you by the government with a promise for payment.  You have not been paid the amount that was promised.  What can you do?

Does our society provide equal opportunity for all?

This project will give you the knowledge and skills to know what to do about situations such as these. **
 
 
 
 

Over the next several days you will:

1. Explore information about past struggles for basic rights.  This will include movements by African-Americans, Hipanics, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, women and disabled people.
2. Describe the injustice that your movement wanted/s to change.
3. Explain the goals of the movement.  What did the people want to accomplish?
4. List and explain the strategies these groups have used to overcome obstacles in order to attain their goals.
5. Evaluate the strategies according to their effectivenss. Did they work?
6. Assess the strategy according to your own personal opinions.  Defend your opinion. Does effectiveness make a strategy right?   (i.e. Is it ok to use violence to achieve your objective?)

1. Research a current event that illustrates how the rights of a group or a targetted member of a group (ethnic, gender,etc.) were violated.
2. Write and creatively present an action plan for how this group can overcome this injustice and how different members of the community can have different levels of impact on the situation.

General Resource
Media Center - books, magazines

SIRS Researcher   (For school use only)
SIRS Researcher on the Web provides thousands of full-text articles on social, scientific, health, historic, business, economic, political and global issues.  Articles are carefully selected from around 1500 newspapers, magazines, journals, and government publications.  Graphics, including charts, maps, diagrams, and drawings, are available for many of the articles.

GaleNet Resources: - internet access  (ask Media Center for password)
        Select:  DISCovering US History
                     DISCovering Multicultural America
 

Phase I:
Web Resources for specific topics:
click on your topic to find suggested links for research

• African Americans
• Women's movement
• Hispanics
• Asian-Americans
• Native Americans
• Persons with Disabilities
• Homosexual/Gay/Lesbian Movement

The Process 

You will play the role of journalistic sleuths (detectives).

Phase I: Establishing Groups and Uncovering your issue
(See the Phase I evaluation for specific grading criteria and for guidance on specific tasks)

1. You will be in groups of four
2. Determine which movement each person will explore. (African-American Civil Rights, Women, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, People with Disabilities)
3. Each person will work individually and later share their findings with the group.
4. Once you have determined which movement you will be exploring, go to the Resources section and click on the appropriate link
5. Follow the instructions for that movement.
6. You will need to define vocabulary terms, describe the reason for and goals of the movement, explain and evaluate strategies.
7. Then you will share this information with the other members of your group.  The more creative the presentation of information, the better.  This helps people remember better.

Now you are experts on social movements for change in our country.  You represent a broad group of people. You are a journalist, politician, businessperson, and a high school student.   You are outraged by a news report that violates our country's founding priciple of EQUALITY FOR ALL. Someone has blatently been discriminated against, or has experienced intolerance toward their ideas, races, gender.  What are you going to do about it?

Step 1:  Find a current event in the newspaper, TV, radio, internet news sources that demonstrates a violation of the EQUALITY FOR ALL principle.

Step 2:  Brainstorm, in your group, what you can do about this problem.

Step 3: Complete a project with the following information, presented in a creative way:  For example -- collage, newscast, skit, poster, power point, written report, news article etc.]
 
 

JOURNALIST: Summarize the news report. Present a neat, final copy of notes taken at the brainstorming session. (from step 2) Ask the politician, businessperson and student questions about their strategies.  These questions should require them to justify the effectiveness of the strategy.

 

POLITICIAN: Establish an identity: your name, political party, elected position in national, state or local government. Present a strategy for what can be done to end this injustice. Remember that you are a politician and people will be concerned about your views on certain topics.  You also have the power to do several things others can not do. What will you do?

 

BUSINESSPERSON: Establish an identity: your name, your occupation, name of your company, role of your company, wealth, family. Present a strategy for what can be done to end this injustice.  How can you, as a businessperson and citizen of this country, help end this injustice?

 

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT You are you, describe yourself, name, age, hobbies,etc. Present a strategy for what can be done to end this injustice.  How can you, as a high school student and citizen of this country, help end this injustice?

Step 4:  As a group, present this information to the class in a creative way.
 
 

Evaluation:
click here
 

Conclusion

Congratulations!!  You have just investigated, explored, created, produced and even learned.
Does our society provide EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL?
In some cases it has not and does not provide those opportunities.
Our governmental system is designed so that people can challenge systems, policies, laws, business practices, individual practices etc. so that they can provide those opportunities and be tolerant and accepting of differences within our society.
 

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