This video talks about that fact that Americans do have freedom of speech, which is stated in the bill of rights. The propose of the freedom of speech is so that citizens can voice their opinions about the government and not get in trouble for it. In a lot of countries people are on aloud to question the government. An important thing to remember is, just because we have the “freedom of speech” doesn’t mean we can’t get in trouble for what we do say.
One example that they provide is Your workplace can make rules and guidelines about what can you can and can not say. Some people may can take this as “taking away your right for free speech” but I could understand this. There are some places you can not say what ever you want.
There are different levels of speech protection. Political speech has the most protection. You can talk about things like not paying your taxes but may not threaten anybody. Symbolic speech is also protected people are allowed to wear symbols on themselves of on probertity.
This video does a good job explaining these different concepts. Its very upbeat and a little fast, the student will have to pay attention to catch all the information shared. Since this is a video to support the book I would have them write down three to five facts that they catch in this video. Then we will discuss these questions as a class.
- What is a work place can you think of beside a school do you think the boss might give guideline on what is and is not appropriate?
- What is a time when symbolic speech was popular in the United States.
- Do you think our freedom of speech right is miss leading?
- Why do you think there are so many leavels of protection?