Blogger #3 - Andy Chen - Period #3 - 9/30/2021

Aim of the Lesson: Why is the “Declaration of Independence” symbolized as a valuable document for our society?/How can common, everyday words and terms denote such deep connotation and meaning?

Do Now: Pair and Share - Why do you think an individual’s rights are so important to society?

For our Do Now at the beginning of the lesson, we talked to those seated around us about why we think individual rights are crucial in a society. I conversed with my team members during this activity and we concluded that individual rights are important because our society values the differences between us. We honor differences between us and accept them since they are what makes us all unique. We thought that individualism was one of the most important parts of our society and that our individual rights protected that and allowed us to be who we are without any repercussions.

For the next part of our lesson, the class reconvened and did a spirit reading of an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence. The excerpt in question was the iconic “We hold these truths to be self-evident” part. After we took turns reading sections from the excerpt, we began our Group/Team work, which was to discuss and record our answers to questions relating to the excerpt. The first question asked what we thought the writers of the text meant when they used the words “life”, “liberty”, and “the pursuit of happiness”. With my team, we said that these three phrases meant that anyone living in this country had the freedom to live their life the way they wanted, to pursue whatever goals or dreams they had. We shared our group’s answers shortly after. Group 5 connected the phrases to a more historical context, saying that the phrases represented the rights and freedoms the original writers in the American colonies wanted to have. During that time period, the American colonies were still part of Great Britain, and were under the jurisdiction and control of the king. I personally connected this to my group’s do now answer about individual rights and how the colonies wanted to govern themselves. After hearing other groups’ answers, Ms. Peterson then brought up an interesting point. She said that although the Declaration of Independence says you have the freedom to do what makes you happy, there are limitations. For example, anything that infringes upon the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of others such as arson, murder, or any crime in general was not allowed.

The second question asked if we thought the typical person living in the US had these rights. Our group said yes, the typical person does have these rights and are able to pursue their goals. However, we acknowledged that some groups of people did not. For instance, we said that some people with disabilities have a much harder time in this country than people without. Other groups mentioned that minorities who are oppressed and kept down by others do not have these rights as well. One group said that the authors of the Declaration did not mean for these words to apply to everyone, citing how many of the authors were slave owners. During the group discussion, an interesting pont was brought up. Group 5 said that the question was worded strangely. Who was a “typical person”? Our country is made up of so many different groups of people that it is near impossible to define a person or group as “typical”.

The third question asked us to identify and explain the things people do today to guarantee equality, and to grade it based on its effectiveness. Our group said that protesting and spreading awareness was one of the most effective ways to bring equality. Protesting helps bring issues to the attention of those in positions of power, making sure that they can take appropriate action to help resolve that issue. Other groups also answered with protesting and awareness spreading. We concluded that it is very difficult to grade this method since some times, it succeeds, but other times, it can fail. One group brought up the justice system and other government institutions can help guarantee equality. Ms. Peterson mentioned that sometimes, laws and these government institutions may not be just. The fourth and fifth questions asked us if we thought there were any other alternative methods to bring equality and if we thought these methods would be more or less effective than current ones. I suggested that voting to elect people into power who would make changes towards equality could qualify as a method, but it would not be completely effective since politicians are generally unreliable when it comes to keeping promises. Other groups rescinded that there weren’t too many other alternatives since we came to the conclusion that complete equality was impossible last lesson. Emotions and human nature cause us to look out for ourselves more than we would look out for others.

The next part of the lesson was a class discussion. We were asked how we make people more alike in this country and how we choose to be more alike. We concluded that it was impossible to make every person alike, but we can try. One of the ways we do this is by setting the same expectations and standards for everyone on how they should behave as a member of society. Someone mentioned how trying to make everyone the exact same was toxic and benefits no one. I personally agree and think that it is a very slippery slope, because if you make more drastic efforts to make everyone alike, you begin chipping away at their individual rights.

The last question asked why we believed that humans strive to be like others. Ms. Peterson introduced us to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a 5-tiered pyramid chart which represented different levels of human needs. From this chart, we learned that humans strive to be like and to associate with others since we don’t like being outcasts. It is no fault of our own, since it is human nature to interact with others and to form communities

At the end of the lesson, we went back to the lesson aim (Why is the “Declaration of Independence” symbolized as a valuable document for our society?/How can common, everyday words and terms denote such deep connotation and meaning?) to try and answer it. We concluded that the rights spoken about in the Declaration of Independence should apply to everyone, since they are important in protecting our identity and who we are. We acknowledged that although the writers may not have had every single person in mind when writing those immortal words, we should still make efforts to have them applied to everyone, to ensure that any and every person has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Reflection

In today’s lesson, I was able to explore the words of the Declaration of Independence and the idea of equality much more deeply and understand what it really means to have individual rights. It also made me think more deeply about what it really means to be an American who has these rights which many of us take for granted. I’m very glad that this lesson gave me and my classmates the opportunity to have productive and engaging discussions about these topics because these things are very important and do matter. Even if the Declaration was written some 200 years ago, I realized that important things can still be learned and applied to today’s world by analyzing it. I also appreciate how learning about rights and equality will definitely help us later on in the year when we cover more dystopian novels, since individuality is a large part of the protagonists found in this genre. Overall, I am extremely glad we took the time to cover these topics more in-depth to learn new things.