Social Studies Department

The study of History must provide something more than confirmation of an old cliché about how, of course, it “repeats” itself. At its best, History is indispensable. Many of the great civilizations, including our own, have accepted this at different stages in their existence. There are lessons to be learned about the human condition historically, and about how those lessons have been understood by peoples of different races and cultures across time.

History begins with good storytelling – about heroes and villains, accomplishments and disasters, the emergence of powerful ideas – that illuminate some of those historical lessons. This is enhanced through companion disciplines – economics, political science, and psychology – that study many of the rules, principles, and behaviors that societies produce.

History may not be thought indispensable in the 21st Century, but it should always be challenging. Proof of this is probably found not only in papers researched or essays written, but in conversations that spill over into the hallways at the end of class and ultimately the imagination of “what it must have been like…”

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Mr. Gerald Miller Attends Summer Workshop on James Madison and Constitutional Citizenship

Posted 08/18/2011 12:11PM

Mr. Gerald Miller, Department Chairman of the La Salle College High School Social Studies Department, attended the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) workshop on “James Madison and Constitutional Citizenship” at James Madison’s Montpelier estate in Orange, VA from June 19 through the 24, 2011. Mr. Miller was one of 46 teachers from throughout the United States invited to study James Madison and the challenges he faced as writer of the Constitution, President of the United States, and citizen.

Click here for photos from the conference

During the workshop Mr. Miller explored James Madison's political biography encompasses the stages of his development, establishment, and maintenance of the American constitutional enterprise. The NEH Workshop reviewed Madison's life through six phases, Madison’s formative years, the young political actor, the Federalist Papers, the Bill of Rights, his executive years, and his retirement years, each of these phases serve as a window into America's founding, linking political history and constitutional theory.

Examining these phases of Madison's life provided Mr. Miller with a profound understanding of the new vision of constitutional citizenship that is the very foundation of the American nation. The Workshop included a strong focus on primary documents. With selections from Madison's written record which were used as evidence of his political ideas taking shape and being shared with others. These documents clearly demonstrated Madison's awareness of the Constitution-making process-a process that includes much more than simply drafting a foundational text. This genesis of the American Constitution also remade the role and concept of citizenship. The new conceptualization of citizenship was examined through the use of present-day documents.

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