if so, I’m truly frightened.

Kids…it is good that you are learning, good that you are thinking. But you probably don’t even realize or understand what you don’t know, and that is likely much more than you do know at this time. So engage in argumentive jousts with each other in school, but don’t think you are yet equipped or prepared to take on your elders.

Sincerely,
WiseOldSuperGenius
aka Robert

2. I don’t think we are missing anything. According to Kschultz,
a. You are gathering your information from the newspaper, which is nothing more than hearsay. You have no access to actual government documents.
b. You are not being taught how to study case law, nor are you taught how to apply case law. You obviously are not being taught anything that has to do with the COTUS, let alone the Geneva Convention. If you were being taught that, you would not have reacted to what Mike said. Also, I question how you kids could be considered for an AP class with a reaction like this:

Thats the end of the war powers act, it is irrevelant in the debate. The Geneva Conventions clearly apply, our class read them and decided which ones to use. Note we only use the 1949 ones that were ratified by the Senate becuase subsequent Protocols were not ratified by the Senate and/or signed by the US and thus the President wouldn’t be responsible for following them. I’m not sure how you can say we didn’t learn something about the Geneva Convention when we did.

So let me get this straight, you are saying you are in an AP class, and that is the answer I got? You kids are going to pick and choose which statutes etc? Laughable.

We are hardly mind-numbed robots. Rather, we are trying to analyze a controversial issue by examining both sides instead of listening to critics who would try to force us to adopt their view. This has been an exercise in critical thinking, debate and analysis. To NOT do so would be to limit discussion and force opinion, thus making us mind-numbed robots.

I shudder to think that our schools are turning out mind-numbed robots like you.

(1)
is intended to alter the constitutional authority of the Congress or of the President, or the provision of existing treaties; or
(2)
shall be construed as granting any authority to the President with respect to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations wherein involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances which authority he would not have had in the absence of this joint resolution.

Thats the end of the war powers act, it is irrevelant in the debate. The Geneva Conventions clearly apply, our class read them and decided which ones to use. Note we only use the 1949 ones that were ratified by the Senate becuase subsequent Protocols were not ratified by the Senate and/or signed by the US and thus the President wouldn’t be responsible for following them. I’m not sure how you can say we didn’t learn something about the Geneva Convention when we did. Rendition is a piece of evidence in the debate not a subject of our curriculum, in the same way depleted uranium is evidence in the it and not part of the curriculum. At the end of the day though you are missing the point of education. High school education isn’t about learning things, it is about learning HOW to learn things. Obviously my job will have nothing to do with this subject matter, but the things such as researching, forming an argument on the spot, public speaking, those are things that can’t be done in other ways. This is an intellectual excersise, no one would be getting worked up if we wrote essays on this, I don’t see how changing the format of the debate matters so much. I’ve learned so much through this that it can’t possibly be considered an educational failure. I ended up on the Rush Limbaugh show and spoke for a half hour to millions of people, if thats not the greatest educational oppurtunity I’ve ever had in high school, I don’t know what is. The fact of the matter is all of the class is getting a chance to speak under serious pressure, with reporters watching now, something that will give them confidence in things they do in the future. We never inteded for this to happen, but to say that this shouldn’t go on in our schools is to say that we shouldn’t be doing everything we possibly can to educate our students.

Of course a real defense lawyer could rip us to shreds. We’re not lawyers, we’re not going to BE lawyers, we are looking at evidence. A- Not one of the kids in the class has the intention of going to law school? Odd.
b- you didn’t look at evidence, you looked at propaganda to support the outcome that you were looking for. You have no evidence, you have hearsay. If an attorney can rip you to shreds you have failed.

How the information got to the MSM is irrelevant. The fact is, you have come here to try to explain the class. The school system has a class that they dropped from the cirriculm yet you have a teacher that decides on his own to implement it into his class. You feel the need to keep secrets from other students. If it is such a good thing why hide it.

Passing judgement on others is the key. Whether this is GWB or Joe Blow on the streets, everyone deserves their day in court. We have a system of law set up so that we are not convicting a man on hearsay. Hearsay will not get you through the courts door.
I know I learned a lot more about what is going on in the country through this excerise than any other way, obviously it is effective. This statement is what troubles me the most. Based on your words, I don’t see where you have learned anything about rendition, the Geneva Convention, or The War Powers Act. Is that your fault? No. This is not a subject that is to be rushed through. What I hear you saying is that war is bad and GWB is creating terrorists. You failed to meantion a remedy for this.

Of course a real defense lawyer could rip us to shreds. We’re not lawyers, we’re not going to BE lawyers, we are looking at evidence. I think yoiu should read the newest daily record article now that a reporter was actually in there during the debate and hear how he described it.

Realize the back story of how we came up with this idea isn’t told anywhere. IPPLE, a law class at our school that did a lot of mock trials, was canceled last year. A lot of students who wanted to be in IPPLE were disappointed and Mr Kyle asked us at the end of our Junior year what we wanted to do to make up for the loss of IPPLE. Some kids said a mock trial, he said he’d work it into the curriculum. This year we had our election from September through Novemeber and then post election analysis from our school and the whole state. Then we did some other work that is required for the AP exam. We had talked in September about when to fit in the mock trial this year, and it really can only fit in the foreign policy unit becuase after the AP exam we are doing a fiscal policy excersie that will take a lot of time up. So the students came up with this topic, and Mr Kyle told us to run with it. Student lawyers came up with the charges, the court, the witnesses. The witnesses then researched for a few weeks and wrote papers on it, and the mock lawyers formed arguments based on these papers. Now we’re going through the evidence. All of this will be graded by the 5 teachers at the end. Somehow this got turned into, Mr Kyle thinks George Bush is a war criminal and is indoctrinating his students. Realize the original story was not asked for my our school and as far as we know none of the students gave it to the paper, so the information was given to the paper by someone who is not actually in the class. Thus the confusion about what is going on. It was never our intention to say that we think he is or isn’t a war criminal, there is no way we have the knowledge to do that. But we certaintly can look at what is known in the public sphere about action in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I don’t think anyone can object to that.