The United States Constitution

"We the people of the United States,
In order to form a more perfect union,
Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
Provide for the common defense, promote the
General welfare, and secure the blessings of
Liberty to ourselves and our posterity,
Do ordain and establish this Constitution for
the United States of America"

Today, a women visited us in class to tell us about the United States Constitution. She now live in Norway with her family, but she's originally from Texas in USA where she works at the National Archive.

The Constitution does three things:
- Set up the structure of the federal government
- Control the relationship between federal government and states government
- Says how to change the constitutions
Without this last part the bill of rights would never have been added on.


She asked us to discuss what we think is the purposes of government, and this is some of the things our class came up with:
- Control and protection over the people and control what the citizens can and can't do
- Allow differences in the country and represent everybody
- The infrastructure of a society and make sure that it works.
- So we know how to live together in a society

After discussing what we thought was the purposes of the government, we took a look at the Constitution to understand why the government exist and what the purposes were originally meant to be.

Instead of reading the original text, she handed out a photo with 52 different license plates that when put together formed the Constitution (You can see the photo under). This version of the Constitution is a piece of art made by an artist for the 200 years anniversary of the constitution in 1987.

After looking at the "license plates"-version of the Constitution, she handed out a draft of the original Constitution. The copy was actually George Washington's, and we could see his handwriting and comments on the paper.
Many people think that the Constitution is a long text, but it is in fact only four pages long where the last half page is only signatures.

We watched a short film made with the purpose to teach American children about American history. The film was sent on TV between cartoons and TV programs for children, and you can see the film here.

In the 1990s kids started to write letters to the President, and we saw a few examples of these letters, for example a letter from a little girl with a proposal to change the American flag and a drawing of how it could look like.

I think she did a great job explaining the Constitution and the government's function in a society, and I learned a lot from her.