I loved the visit to the Constitution Center, especially the talk by Carol Berkin. I could have listened to her all day. Her anecdotes made the writers of the Constitution come to life, and while she repeated much of what she wrote about in her book, it was great to get a recap and her opinion which men she believed were truly genius (a very small percentage.) Her list included Hamilton, Franklin, Dickenson, James Wilson, Guevernor Morris, and possibly James Madison. The rest of the men, according to Berkin, were quite ordinary except for the fact they were landed, educated, and had access to both information and travel. This group of men was bound together by a common goal and a common confidence in the fact that they had the right and the duty to rule. What they were not confident about was that what they created would last, and according to Franklin, if it lasted for 10 years, it would be a success. Carol went on to say that the ideas in the Constitution were not new, but the combining of ideas to give power to both the states and the national government in what she called “divided sovereignty” is what elevated this document to the “genius” category.
In summary, Carol believes that the writers of the constitution should be admired for the facts that they: faced up to a crisis, entered into the Convention in a spirit of compromise, they were self-reflective—checking even their own desires for power—and finally, they were forward thinking enough to acknowledge that the Constitution should be flexible enough to allow for the changes in the future. 
“Our Constitution is a living, breathing document.”
Aside from Berkin’s talk, the Constitution Center itself was an impressive place. The three concentric circle design of the center emphasizes the ideas of Civic Knowledge, Public Action, and Democratic Deliberation. One ideology of the center is that every teacher is a Civics teacher, and in the afternoon session we were given some examples of how to combine all three ideas into a single lesson. The model can work with any type of lesson from fractions to learning adverbs, and I think it is a usable idea for the classroom. Other resources were also shared including sites for where to get information on political office holders and where to go to locate and research both primary and secondary sources.
For me this day gets a rave review. The other days were good, but this one was great in terms of sparking imagination, stimulating thought, and inspiring new ways to teach and integrate lessons about the Constitution into the classroom.
A little post script to this day is that in the middle of writing this blog, the emergency dorm evacuation siren went off with the loud robotic voice informing us to move to the nearest fire exit. (Do not use the elevators. Move to the stairwell.) So we had a little walk down 10 flights of stairs and back up 10 flights of stairs because when we got back in the building, the elevators hadn’t been reset. Basically we had three cardiovascular thrills: one walking down the steps, one walking back up, and one when the alarm went off.
I’m not exactly sure how I’ll apply this knowlege to the classroom.
