The Power and Logic of the Word
On March 18, 2008, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for District of Columbia v. Heller, the case in which the Court will decide whether the Second Amendment contains an individual right to bear arms. Within oral arguments, there was a significant repartee between justices and attorneys regarding the minutia of the Second Amendment clauses—in what manner does the placement of commas, the ordering of clauses, and the wording of the clauses effect the substantive right? Thus, language, sytanx, and grammar will determine whether United States citizens possess an individual right to bear arms.
On February 2, 2008, NJ LEEP high school freshman from Newark, East Orange, Irvington and Jersey City participated in a grammar competition. In the competition at Seton Hall Law School , students were asked questions regarding all grammar materials they had studied in NJ LEEP’s Saturday grammar classes beginning in September 2007. As an example, one of the questions was the following: Which of the following word groups cannot serve as the subject of a sentence? A) gerund phrase B) noun clause C) present participial phrase. (The answer, by the way, is C.)
Academic skills are the foundation necessary for the educational attainment necessary to provide forays into the professional worlds. After learning criminal law and competing in an exciting mock trial competition last summer, our students have often bemoaned the academic focus of NJ LEEP’s high school freshman year. But we also often speak to them of the power of character—the decision to do what is right even when such decision is patently uncomfortable. And NJ LEEP’s freshman students revealed their character in full glory on February 2nd, as they utilized brilliantly in competition the grammar they had learned. Students also showed that they are beginning to understand the message of the NJ LEEP gospel: It is the dialectic of skills and character that will provide them with the opportunity to maximize their potential.
Mock Trials and other events are very important for our students to build their self-confidence, and for them to become exposed to possibilities they may have hitherto never considered. But we would be perpetrating upon our students a grave injustice if we excited them about the possibilities of the world, but then did not give to them the skills which are the tools necessary to manifest such possibilities. We are clear with our students, and our students and their families have joined with us in this cry: They are involved in nothing less than a war, even if that war is one of true peace based upon equity and justice. They are involved in a war to build positive and supportive community, to find ways to navigate the dangers of the urban milieu, and to acquire the academic skills which will allow them to destroy the expectations which the world has set for them.
And in this war, language, and the logic which underlies its rules as well as mathematical and critical thought, are the most effective weapons. The battle for educational, professional, and economic equity is a battle of skills. The E’s in NJ LEEP stand for Education and Empowerment. Our community is dedicated to providing skills for our students through education, so that they can understand the empowerment that comes from obtaining, through their own efforts, the wealth of experiences that the world has to offer. We have been very fortunate to have been joined by many judges, attorneys, law students, law faculty and other volunteers who have given their valuable time to provide empowering experiences. And our students will be the first to declare, that it is their responsibility to be prepared to excel in such experiences when they are offered. There is that which is given—but there is also that which must be actualized. It is in the choice to always engage, that victory is won.