THE GREAT AMENDMENT
Hello Visitor! In this class called A Nation’s Argument we talked about the progression of the United States as a nation. In that, we wanted to answer the question of how a Nation that is supposed to act in unity contradicts itself due to the differences in political views, life ideologies, and of course, the economy. We went back to the very beginning by studying the Declaration of Independence by having groups debunk each page of the D.O.I to understand why and how Thomas Jefferson wrote what he did. We also had to think as a person in the 1770’s to fully engulf in the world of a person that lived in this time to figure out their perspective and the thesis that the United States was proclaiming. Next we moved onto a lecture from Professor Freeman with the guiding question “How is a Nation argued into being” talking more about the Declaration of Independence and the buildup to it. Then we started learning about the anatomy of a proper argument; how a proper argument needs premises that are valid and a conclusion that is true in order to be sound (where no holes are able to be poked into the argument). While we were learning the anatomy of an argument we still kept up with the history of the United States following the rhetoric, the political atmosphere of the late 1700’s and early 1800’s all until the civil war happened. We took a step back from history for an F.E to learn about our own rights and the framework. Fast forwarding a little we studied the development of the political parties that led to the Civil war and how the opposing sides' life ideologies differed due to the jobs they had the opportunities in different states; especially around the topic of slavery. After learning the political and economic atmosphere of the developing U.S we were then asked to make a project on a rule that we would want to change in the code of conduct in our school. The rule from the code of conduct I wanted to change was the rule “The School may revoke open campus privileges for any individual for any reason.”
I think this needs to be removed since it doesn’t inform the students on what would lead to this punishment and the tyrannical power that it gives the teachers. Tyrannical power in a typical school setting isn’t irregular at all, but if you include the context of the environment GCE (Global Citizenship Experience) upholds everywhere else it doesn’t make sense for this tyrannical power to be in place. For instance in the classroom the student and the teacher are on a first name basis; which is something that schools with tyrannical power don’t do at all. Another unspoken rule is that the student and the teacher are rhetorically at an eye to eye level; As students we are not looked at as kids, more as young adults. So if we are looked at as young adults in the classroom why would it be reasonable for there to be tyrannical power instead of a consistent ruling or a voting system before the privilege is taken away as it’s a very common thing for students to use. But before I get ahead of myself I must think from the perspective of the school which is pretty intuitive to do.
So the argument for the following rule “The School may revoke open campus privileges for any individual for any reason.” is likely due to these reasons.
P1 - If any staff is thinking about removing these privileges from an individual then it is deserved
P2 - Most students wouldn’t receive such a judgment out of nowhere anyway.
C - The School may revoke open campus privileges for any individual for any reason.
Well in practice, yes this is typically how the situation is handled, but the possibility of the power being misused is very easy and is rightfully so due to the wording. As the rule says “for any reason” the reason could stem from the typical parent to child argument “Because I said so” which in turn IS a reason so it’ll be completely fine; but if GCE wants to upkeep the unspoken developing citizen of a young adult why would parent to child rules need to be enforced. This will cause child-like habits to be instilled in the students if anything. I think embedding the ruling based on the core values of the school would be more intuitive of the ruling since it doesn’t rely on there for it to be any reason and have their action be against a ruling put in place since there’s an actual boundary that they would knowingly cross besides just jumping over that imaginary boundary that they most likely didn’t know that was punishable.
So for my amendment I would like for the ruling to be:
P2 - Off Campus Lunch is a privilege granted to those who follow those core values
C - Student’s that do not act along the core values shall not have off campus lunch
I think this would make the rule better since there is an obvious line of reasoning other than "any reason" since it gives students some insight of what behaviors could entail that punishment. This would also incorporate the student's 6th amendment since they're entitled to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation. As the ruling stands now this would violate their rights as a 6th amendment and my amendment would stop that violation since the student would not know the
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