Teachers Contest
The Freedom Festival Teacher Contest recognizes efforts of teachers to instill expressions of patriotism implanting these ideals in the hearts of their students, K-12th grades throughout the nation.
This year’s theme is taken from the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Tehe submissions deadline is February 26.
Contest Guidelines
Theme: First Amendment
Eligibility: Open to teachers of all grades K-12
Entry Format: PDF, Docx
Submission Deadline: April 26
Divisions: K-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12
The Freedom Festival Teacher Contest is designed to recognize and honor classroom teachers who demonstrate ability to motivate and inspire students to become effective citizens of our nation. Teachers to be honored:
- Foster a learning environment that engages students in a positive view of American history;
- Employ innovative instructional practices that address Freedom Festival themes and values;
- Encourage students to use their understanding of the American founding and guiding documents to become engaged, informed citizens in their communities and nation;
- Make effective use of documents, artifacts, histories, and other credible sources to engage students with American history; and Models good citizenship.
The Freedom Festival Teacher Contest is open to ALL Teachers in grades K-12, whether in traditional public schools, public chartered schools, private schools, or home schools. Judging will be broken in divisions K-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12.
Email us for support at: teachercontest@freedomfestival.org.
Cash prizes will be based on judging criteria.
WIN UP TO $500.00 FOR EACH DIVISION
K-3,4-6, 7-9, 10-12
Download The Educational Events Poster
Download PosterSubmit to Contest
Entries are judged on a teacher’s exposition of the theme in the course of their classwork, depth of insight in teaching, use of curriculum supplied by the Freedom Festival or other supporting materials, and any other innovative ways used to address this year’s theme: First Amendment to the Constitution. The percentage of your students entries in the art, essay, and speech contests where it would apply will be taken into consideration.
The founders of our nation believed that we must have the right to think, believe, argue, and
worship freely, and, in turn, to express our beliefs to our fellow citizens and to our government
as freely as possible. That idea—the freedom of conscience—is the core of the First
Amendment.
Some possible questions or issues to be considered in essays:
1. What if there were no First Amendment? How would your life be affected?
2. Do you think the freedoms identified in the First Amendment would already be
protected in a democracy where citizens have a role in shaping the government? Was it
necessary to establish these rights in an official document?
3. Explain and give examples of how the First Amendment does not permit people to do
anything they want to do. How and why are the liberties and rights of people not
unlimited? In what kinds of situations do you think it is fair and reasonable to limit
freedom of expressions?
4. Are the First Amendment freedoms among the “self-evident” and “unalienable rights”
referred to in the Declaration of Independence? What is the relationship of the
Declaration of Independence to the Bill of Rights?
5. Explain Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis statement that the founding generation
“believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means
indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech
and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily
adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest
menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that
this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.