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 :)