Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Teaching suggestions, anyone?

Kit Heidlage, who teaches at Massachusetts' Newton North High School, is looking for suggestions for a post-AP exam project.

She asked, "Do you know of a post-AP exam project where the students build their own government? My students all take multiple AP courses and so there is a constant and varied absence rate, and I thought that a group project like this would be doable. However, I need some guidance and ideas of how to structure the project. And, of course, I would be delighted to have a detailed plan! Can you help me out?"

I replied that I thought the idea was a good one.

If I were doing it, I'd want to set up some initial parameters for students:

create a geography/climate/population/history for students to work within
A list of what needs to be done: governance structure: executive, management, legislative, judicial? constitution?
How will the new government come to be accepted?
How will leaders be chosen?
How to best represent citizens?
Citizen and human rights?
Are there minorities that need/deserve protection from majority rule and how do you protect them?
Legitimacy (internal and external)?
What about civil society? Traditions? Religion?
Environmental challenges?

Or give students the Bhutan example: a king who wants to create a democracy.

Or maybe you want them to create a political system for a space colony. See