2005-06: History of Law

This year our theme took a new turn. After studying environmental themes for the past four years, the oldest children at Running River studyed the HISTORY OF LAW for a year. Here is our basic outline for that year:

We began the first week of school, with a discussion around these questions:

• What are the laws (rules) at your house? Why do you have those laws? Who decides them? Do they change? When and how? What happens if you break one of these laws? Why do you break a law at your house?
• What do you think are the five most important laws we need to live by and why?
• Why do you think people break laws?
• What laws do you think we need at school and why?
• Create our own school laws and consequences for breaking them and discussion.

In September we spent the first two weeks of school hiking every day and then went on a four day camping trip to the mountains in the Crestone area and to the Sand Dunes. We studied and discussed natural laws (physics). What are these laws, do they ever change, are people making some of our natural cycles of nature change and how. We also did science experiments, which we will continue throughout the year.

In October and the beginning of November studied ancient Mesopotamia: the cradle of civilization:

• Why did people start living together in large groups instead of clans or tribes?
• What problems arose and how did they deal with them?
• How did leaders arise in large groups (not just leader of the family)?
• What was Hammurabi’s first code of laws?

Each child chose an area of study in Mesopotamia and did a report and presented it to the class.

In art class they worked with clay and wrote onto clay after studying the beginning of writing.

November through January we will study world religions. We will begin with a discussion on what is religion, why did it arise, how did it first arise and how do we know that, what was its purpose and who were its leaders. Is religious law different from government law? Are they ever the same? Our focus after that will mainly be on Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam although we may touch on other religions. We will hear the stories of those religions, find people who adhere to those religions to come and talk to the children and visit places of worship. Our Christmas play will be taken from a story from one of those religions.

The end of January through the beginning of March we will study the Iroquois Confederation and the creation of the first democracy. Our spring play will be the story of Deganawida who was the Peace Maker of the confederation and brought the five tribes together under one government of peace. We will discuss leadership and what makes a good leader, and each child will take turn being a “leader of the class” for a day. In reading class we will conjunct with theme by reading stories about great leaders and talking about them, writing and other possible research.

March through the end of school we will study the American Revolution. How did our laws come to pass? How were they taken from different sources? What was the revolution about and who were its leaders? We will do debates from different sides of the war, as well as from different classes of society. We will study our government’s documents and our form of government. We will study the rise of mass media and its role, and create a school newspaper. Each child will do an end of year project around the American Revolution.

In addition, towards the end of the year, we will discuss the different forms of government (in brief) and try and act some of them out (what would happen if you broke a law in each of the different countries where these forms of government exist?).

Note: Some of what we do in theme is spontaneous and arises out of group discussions or ideas. Parents and teachers often collaborate and come up with projects that take us down certain tracks. The goal of this unit is to open up the kid’s minds and feelings to what laws are, what leaders are or could be, and teach them to ask questions and to know what their rights are, as well as to give them a deeper understanding of history.