APGov and the Twenty-Sixth Amendment
Open Letter to all US Gov Teachers (APGov Teachers in Particular)
U.S. Gov teachers everywhere, have you yet had a chance to teach the Twenty-Sixth Amendment?
Most APGov teachers teach the 26th when covering the topic of Voting Rights. They do this then for three reasons.
- APGov CED Topic 5:1 specifically calls for the teaching of Voting Rights.
- The learning objective for Topic 5:1 (MPA-3.A) suggests that students, for the APGov exam, will need to be able to “describe the voting rights protections in the Constitution and in legislation.”
- The 26th amendment is a good example, many would say, of legislation that sought to protect voting rights by “prohibit(ing) the states and the federal government from using age as a reason for denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States who are at least eighteen years old.”
If, for any reason, you haven’t yet managed to teach the 26th, no worries. To get your students to know what they need to know, you need only put before them any one or more of the following:
- The 26th Amendment (Four-minute read; History)
- The 26th Amendment (Website; National Museum of American History)
- The 26th Amendment Explained: The Constitution for Dummies Series (3:35 video; Hip Hughes)
- The 26th Amendment Certification Ceremony (3:25 video; Richard Nixon Presidential Libary)
- Shootings Gave 26th Amendment Renewed Urgency (1:15 Podcast; Center for Civic Education)
- The fight for the Right to Vote in the United States (4:30 video; TED-Ed)
The above consists of just a sampling of all the 26th amendment-related free and high-quality resources currently available online . . . though I’m certain you could suggest the addition of many others (including the soon to be published AP Daily Video Topic 5:1).
In any event, if after your students have learned about the 26th Amendment you want to have your students take it one step further, I suggest having them first view a very good 9:56 KQED Above the Noise video entitled Do the Crime, Do the Time…and Lose Your Vote?
Then, after your students have watched the video, I suggest asking them whether they think convicted felons should lose the right to vote . . . even after they have served their time?
Then if they want to share their answer to this question in a super safe place (other than your classroom), I suggest placing this KQED Learn link before them https://learn.kqed.org.
Here they can share with peers not only in their own classroom but also with students across the country, for KQED Learn isn’t just a private message board for the individual classroom — it’s a platform for larger discussion with students nationwide.
Lastly, if you, as an APGov teacher, know some other high school US Government teacher who might want to place the above-described learning experience before his/her students, feel free to share with that teacher a link to this blog post.
