MORGAN, Stan (October, 2012). “The Presidential Candidates” Creative Commons
For this unit in my Argument class we studied Abduction. Abduction is reasoning that starts with a result or goal followed by a rule and then case. The country that we choose to study was Haiti because of their many different constitutions we were able to understand that they were trying to find a rule that help them get the result they wanted. Through deep dives into historical text, research, presentation, and a field trip to a Haitian restaurant we created our own constitution. After separately writing we brought our laws to the group to be ratified and voted upon and didn’t leave until we had an agreed upon constitution. He experience was by far my favorite project in the class so far and I learned a lot about how rules and bills are made and passed. Below is my rule that was approved as well as a PDF of the entire Student Constitution. Enjoy 🙂
1. Result – A Surprising Fact… (What is the Desired Outcome?)
2. Rule – An Ingenious Solution (What, if True, would make the Result a Matter of Course?)
3. Case – The Likely Outcome of the Solution
4. Materials and Experience from Students
1. Result – A Surprising Fact… (What is the desired outcome?)
Students and staff at our school are frustrated with the school dress code. Many students have found that it prohibits and or limits self expression and believes that there are too many restrictions on our personal choice of style. While staff members believe it maintains a safe space where learning can happen without inappropriate distractions from attire. Whatever the opinions are there is too much miscommunication as well as ambiguousness to certain current rules and the way their enforced.
This amendment offers a solution that is one we have never tried before where dress code and the accountability of it will be given to another party.
2. Rule – An Ingenious Solution (What, if true, makes Results a matter of course?)
For many years schools have struggled and battled with “dress code” creating a few solutions. One includes what I consider to be an extreme which is uniforms. The idea of having uniforms is a trend that started in Britain, Australia, South Africa, and Japan. Many public schools over the years have began to enforce uniforms for students in America. Other schools have tried to be a little more open to using a dress code stating rules about clothing. In most of those cases things have gone wrong because of misinterpretations of words within rules. A few schools have left it up to the parents to decide. Thus I suppose:
Our school shall implement a new dress code that will be decided upon by representatives from the teachers, students, and parents. Using feedback forms that will be given to everyone at orientation a poll will be created that will show the opinions of the community. A few members from each cohort will join a week before school starts to discuss, debate, and define what the dress code will be that year. Dress code shall be signed by students, parents, and dean of students before school starts.
3. Case – The Likely Outcome of the Solution
With the a dress code that everyone has an equal opinion on the process will be more democratic and all voices and ideas will be heard. There will be a better understanding of dress code that will be more effective because parents will also be able to enforce it. Students will be more accountable because they not only get to help create it but also get to see the reasons behind certain rules. If it signed by parents and students as well as the dean we can stop excuses and miscommunications.
4. Materials and Experience from GCE Students (Sorted alphabetically)
CRUZ, Barbara (May 2011). “Debate: School Unifrom” Debatepedia
DELL’ANTONIA, KJ (September 2012). ” Teenage Dress Codes: Easier said than done” The New York Times
GRAFF, Amy (August 2012). ” School dress codes in the news” SFGATE