Court Case Tinker vs. Des Moines

The court case I thought was the most interesting was Tinker vs. Des Moines.  John Tinker and his sister Mary Beth Tinker wore black arm bands to school to protest the war that was going on.  Many teachers feared the arm bands would cause disturbances.  The school asked John and his sister to take off the arm bands or face being suspended.  They both refused and were suspended  from school.  Does the wearing of arm bands in public school, as a form of symbolic protest, violate the First Amendment's freedom of speech protections?  No it does not.  Everyone has the freedom of speech wether they are talking or wearing an arm band.  Tinker was not harming anyone or doing anything wrong. He was just voiceing his opinion. Ibelieve students should be able to express themselves by wearing whatever they want.  Some school have so many rules about the dress codes, its ridiculous!

Childrens Book

I really enjoyed working with my group creating a children's book.  I love arts and crafts so I was a pro at creating this book.  It was interesting to see how the other groups incorporated the information about the Illinois State government. 

One thing I learned was more about the different branches of Government.  It turns out that all 3 branches equally share the power.  They also look after one another to make sure that one branch is not gaining too much power.  The executive branch is run by the governor but also shares powers wtih 5 other elected constitutional officers.  This branch controls the state budget, appoints departments and many other things.  The legislative branch is head by the general assembly.  This is made up of 59 members on the Senate and 118 House of Representatives.  This branch passes legislation involving policy such as taxes adn spending.  The last branch is the judicial branch which is head by the Supreme Court.  This branch hears final arguments in certain legal cases.

I also learned more about the history of the state capitol.  I had always thought the capitol was in Springfield but it was origionaly in Kaskaaskia.  Then it moved to Vandalia and finally Springfield.  There has been a total of 6 capitol buildings also.

One last thing I learned writing our children's book was our education system.  I learned the Illinois State Board of Education sets educational policies and guidelines for public and private schools, preschool- 12th grade, and vocational education for the benefit of more than 2 million children in Illinois.

I have learned alot about working in groups during this project.  For starters the work is never done equally.  Somethimes there are slackers and you just have to be firm with them and make sure they get their work done.  Other than that I had a lot of fun brainstorming with my group. We had a lot of fun writing about aliens and the government.  And i think I made a pretty good coverpage for our book :)

Who should be President

Well i do not know that much about all the Republican candidates right now.  After reading all of the great information on our class website I am leaning toward Ron Paul.  I completely agree with him that the government has to stop being so involved in everything.  Pretty soon the government is just going to control everyone.  I really have no idea who is going to  win the presidental election.  I know there are a lot of people who don't like Obama anymore and will not vote for him, but there are also a lot of undecided voters.  All of the Republican candidates are so different and until they are narrowed down to one I can't make a prediction.

The past 2 weeks of Government...

I have learned so much these past two weeks of government.  Gmail was a new experience for me.  I've never had a Gmail so I was excited to see what it was all about.  I had no idea you could share documents so that multiple people could edit the document at the same time.  I feel our projects can get done a lot faster with everyone working instead of just one person typing and doing all the work.  Working in a team is hard work.  As a team leader I have to make sure everyone is staying on task and we are making our deadlines.  Some days this week members of my group were not in class so everyone else had to step up in order to finish.  Overall I think my group worked really well together.  We finished ahead of time and our page turned out very neat and easy to follow.

My team researched Voting Regulations and Congressional Elections.  One thing I learned about voting regulations is that Illinois has a "grace period."  The registration deadline inorder to vote is 28 days before the election.  The grace period extends the registration deadline up to 14 days before the election.  This year is the 57th presidential election.  The Senate and House elections also land on the same day as the presidential election, November 6th.  I learned that only 1/3 of the Senate participates in every election and the House is elected back up every 2 years. I also learned we live in District 8.  Since I have never voted I have never paid attention to which district we live in.  The men who represent us are Sen. Richard Durbin, Sen. Mark Kirk, and Representative Joe Walsh.  This is the election year for all three of them so I will pay more attention to the debates.    

My Websites

For me I like websites that are neat.  If there is a website with only words and long paragraphs I would probaably try and find another one.  I like websites that have bullet points.  They are easy to follow.  Pictures are also helpful.  If I am doing research I also like links to other pages because then I can get more information on the same topic.  The fewer words the better. I want a website that is straightforward gets right to the point.