SUMMARY:

• Project Based Learning Model

• Class size: 4-10 students.

• Duration: 12 Weeks (1st week of January—4th week of March)

• One 2-hour class per week.

• End of Term Display of Learning: deliverable presentation in visual, audio, or print media on the chosen area of study.

• Student assessment provided for homeschooled students and those who request it.

• Additional live or asynchronous interaction with tutor via email.

COURSE INTRODUCTION:

When Thomas Jefferson wrote “All men are created equal” and “[governments derive] their just powers from the consent of the governed” in the Declaration of Independence, he was not including his slaves. Jefferson owned more than 600 slaves and would never free them. However, when these same enlightened ideals of liberty and equality reached the island of San Dominique, they lead to the greatest and most successful slave revolt in the history of the world. When they reached South America, they inspired an orphaned playboy billionaire named Simon Bolivar to free his people from colonization and abolish slavery forever. Hypocrisy was not fated.

In this twelve-week course designed for Middle Schoolers, we will survey how three near-contemporary revolutions in North America, Haiti, and the Bolivarian Republics produced radically different forms of freedom. We will explore each revolution in turn, with an emphasis on monthly “decision points” which will see students roleplay the choices of revolutionary leaders while learning the actual history. In the process we will give young students a sense of human agency seldom experienced in a history class, and a global perspective seldom offered in a US school.

Make it.

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