Free Educational Topics in Chicago
It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3: Browse for a topic, Click the orange request button, Fill out the contact form.
Now the speaker will contact you in the next few days to coordinate details.
-
Our Antiquated Electoral College
Ed Spire, Co-lead, Restore our Democracy Project, NWSOFA-Indivisible
Request This Free SpeechLearn why we elect the US president via the Electoral College, how our Electoral College damages our demcoracy - and what we can do about it.
-
Increasing Political Polarization and what we can do about it
Ed Spire, Co-lead, Restore our Democracy Project, NWSOFA-Indivisible
Request This Free SpeechEvery decade, increasing gerrymandering has created more and more "safe seats", which have resulted in more and more extreme legislators on both sides of the aisle - creating a legislature where compromise is impossible, and very little legislative progress ensures. This presentation shows why this happens, and what we can do about it, using the recent example of the Alaska special election, utilizing a nonpartisan primary and a ranked choice voting general election, as an example of how to promote more moderate legislators and a more productive legislature. MORE >
-
Creating A Private Sector: Contract Law & The Constitutional Protection of the Right of Conscience
Mark McGarvie, J.D., Ph.D.,, Retired Professor of History and Law, College of William and Mary
Request This Free SpeechProfessor McGarvie is considered one of our leading authorities on the separation of church and state. His ground-breaking thesis articulated in 2004 with the publication of One Nation Under Law has gained tremendous support and led to invitations to write successor volumes and essays for both Oxford and Cambridge University Presses and to speak on the subject across the country. MORE >
In this presentation, Professor McGarvie will explain how the separation of church and state resulted from the Founders' creation of a private sector through the contract clause of the Constitution. Contract law revolutionized the relationships between citizens and their governments. Placing religion in the private sector required its separation from government and the removal of churches from performing public functions in education, poor relief, and record keeping, for which they had responsibility in the colonial era. -
Demonstrating and Teaching Mental Math Methods
Cliff Petrak, Retired Teacher, Brother Rice High School
Request This Free SpeechLearn to master a multitude of little-known, super-shortcut computational methods involving addition, subtraction, fractions, squaring and multiplication. Unfortunately, our country consistently finishes among the bottom third of industrialized countries in the annual mental math competition for students. Learning these strategies and methods will leave your calculator-dependent friends in the dust!
-
What’s an Assault Weapon, and why are they so deadly?
Ed Spire, Co-lead, Restore our Democracy Project, NWSOFA-Indivisible
Request This Free SpeechThere's been a lot of discussion lately about tighter regulations on assault weapons like the AR-15. If we are going to regulate these weapons, we will need a legal definition describing them. And instead of a definition that depends upon specific configurations or cosmetic appearance, we propose a definition based on the factors that make this class of weapons so deadly. MORE >
This presentation focuses on the development of this class of weapons, the factors that make them so deadly, and how we can use those factors to legally define an "assault weapon" for future regulation thereof.