21 Mar
Discovering Justice was honored to host four events as part of the Massachusetts Civic Learning Coalition’s (MCLC) Fourth Annual Civic Learning Week, March 11-15. Three of these events invited K-12 classrooms across the Commonwealth to “Zoom with a Judge” to explore the justice system, and the fourth event engaged Massachusetts students, teachers, legislators, and their staff at the Massachusetts State House to speak on the importance of civic education in schools.
More than 3,500 students and teachers from across the Commonwealth logged into the “Zoom with a Judge” virtual events. More than 80 classrooms attended the Kindergarten-Grade 2 event, which was hosted by United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Chief Judge David Barron and Judge Gustavo Gelpí.
Meanwhile, 70 classrooms signed into the Grades 3-5 event hosted by Judge Lara Montecalvo and Judge Ojetta Thompson of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (below).
In the third “Zoom with a Judge” event, for Grades 6-12, students learned about their Fourth Amendment rights in schools from Chief Magistrate Judge for the U.S. District Court Donald Cabell and Associate Justice of the Massachusetts District Court, Brockton Michelle Fentress. Joining from classrooms across the state, students were able to think like judges themselves, explaining if they believed different scenarios were violations of students’ fourth amendment rights.
Teachers in attendance praised the events as “engaging,” noting that students “were really excited to see the judges,” and they left the events excited to engage in nuanced conversation with their students.
