Jury Trials, Fruit Roll-Ups, and Gun Control

The only thing that these three things have in common is that they elicited very very very strong reactions in my students.

My 9^th graders are doing a section on “rights,” so I thought we’d do a simple exercise on the Bill of Rights, matching up amendments with situations in which someone’s rights might be violated.  I didn’t finish the activity with either group, as all of the students got really caught up on the idea of “trial by jury.” After I explained what a jury is and does, the questions just kept coming.  They couldn’t get over the idea of someone with no legal training taking part in the legal process…”jury of your peers” didn’t elicit particularly good reactions.  I later found out Germany does have something similar, in which “lay-people” help decide outcomes, but it doesn’t seem as common as in the States.

As for fruit roll-ups, one of my 8^th grade classes requested that I bring some back for them after my trip home for Christmas…I did, and they were ridiculously excited. 

Finally, one of my 11^th grade classes has been doing group presentations on various issues in America, such as gun control, the death penalty, and the civil rights movement.  I was in class with them for the gun control presentation, and at the end they asked me to speak and field questions.  They really couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that I’ve been near guns before and don’t have a problem with people owning them privately; even the teacher was unable to remain “neutral” about the issue and kept agreeing with the students that she would really hate to live in a place where guns were so much more normalized.  It was, without a doubt, the most stressful 20 minutes I’ve ever experienced in school (simply on the account of 25 people staring at my like I was bat-shit-crazy), but the kids were all still really respectful and thanked me at the end of class for talking with them.

Overall, everything at school has been going really well, and all of the kids seemed quite excited that I came back after the holidays.  My homesickness is still more intense than I thought it would be (the freezing winter weather that makes me want to stay in bed all day isn’t helping!) but each day is a bit better!