Gone Global Classroom: The Problem With Representation

Sign a treaty that establishes independence from Great Britain. Check.

Americans are now free to form their new nation. What comes next? Creating a government that protects the freedoms and liberties of its people, of course. I mean, after all those years of living under the tyranny of King George III, what else could be more important?

Questions for learners:

What actions are necessary in order to start a new government?
What would be the role of the leaders of the new nation?
What would one of the major concerns be in preserving the new government and nation?

Lest we forget, Americans had just fought the British and King George III for many years. They were scared to give power to any one person. They definitely didn’t want another king and they certainly didn’t want a strong, new leader who might tax them heavily like the last one.

Let's see... Let's not elect a president, let's give all of the power to each individual state and very little power to the national government. That should do the trick. With that, the Articles of Confederation were drafted and ratified. The state of being free from the control or power of another was surely a welcome change for American citizens. That is, until the smaller states, like Delaware, Rhode Island and Georgia, realized that the system of representation was flawed.

To effectively demonstrate the early problems with strict proportional representation, our learners took part in a simulation titled "Last Tower Standing". Learners were assigned to groups comprised of 8, 6, 4, 2 or 1 persons, depending on the size of the population in the state that they were representing. For example, Virginia was the group of 8 learners representing the most populous state at the time, and Delaware was the solitary student, representing the least populous state. Each person received 3 wooden blocks and $20 (like dollars, only because I did not have the different types of currency each state was producing). Each of the groups were tasked with building the largest and most stable tower using the blocks provided and that they had to work together with members of their state to achieve this (I'm sure you can see where this is going). Most saw this as a competition. Delaware was obviously the first to finish while Virginia was carrying out an elaborate design plan, desperate to win the challenge given their abundance of blocks. It didn't take long for Delaware and Georgia to declare the challenge unfair (phew - things were off to a good start). Students were then asked to propose solutions to the problems that some of the states were facing, but any and all proposals had to receive a 4/5 majority vote in order to pass. Delaware and Georgia proposed several solutions, all of which garnered very little, if any, support. Why would Virginia or Massachusetts want to sacrifice their resources in order to let another state win the challenge? Virginia even wanted more access to blocks and asked if they could purchase more blocks with their funds to ensure their win. How could these problems be solved? It was a lengthy discussion, but learners eventually realized that they weren't exactly behaving like the "UNITED" states they had so confidently called themselves. There were obvious problems with the current government structure. It was broken and it needed to be fixed. Oh, and throw all of those angry farmers who felt they were being treated unfairly into the equation (Shays' Rebellion) and you have a recipe for a British takeover. There was no way Americans were going to let THAT happen. Not after everything they had been through. So, what could happen if Americans actually stood together? It's what's coming up next as we march to Pennsylvania's Constitutional Convention to rewrite our nation's frame of government; where we will form a nation through compromise.