YOUTH INITIATIVE HIGH SCHOOL
Waldorf Initiative in Viroqua, Wisconsin, USA
COURSES AND CLASSES
American
History Through Reconstruction & the History of World Revolutions
Instructor: Matthew J. Voz
Week One: American Revolution
Day One: Introductions, the vocabulary of revolution
Day Two: The Philosophy of Democracy
Readings: John Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government
Day Three: Preface to Revolution: 1763-1775
Readings: Loyalists & Patriots, Selections from Joseph Galloway & Thomas Paine
Day Four: The War
Readings: Declaration of Independence
Day Five: The Consolidation of the Revolution
Readings: Selections from the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation
Week Two: The French Revolution
Day One: The Ancient Regime
Readings: Louis XIV: Illustration of Autocracy
Day Two: The Pendulum Swings to the Left
Readings: Maximillian de Robespierre, Speech of 17 Pluviose
Day Three: The Pendulum Swings to the Right
Readings: J.S. Mill, Tyranny of the Majority, John C. Calhoun, The Concurrent Majority
Day Four: Napoleon Uber Alles
Activity: Mapping the Grand Empire
Day Five: Designing our Class Constitution
Week Three: The American Capitalist Revolution (The Civil War)
Day One: The Inter-War Years
Activity: Mapping our “Manifest Destiny”
Day Two: The Culture of Capitalism
Readings: Joseph Kennedy, Preliminary Report on the Eighth Census, 1862
Day Three: The Culture of Slavery
Readings: Edmund Ruffin, The Political Economy of Slavery
Day Four: Fratricide
Activity: Dialectics
Day Five: In the Image of the Dollar : Reconstruction
Readings: Albert B. Moore, Address to the Southern Historical Association, 1942
Week Four: The 100 Year Revolution – The Mexican Case
Day One: Racial Feudalism – The Spanish Heritage
Readings: Historical Economies
Day Two: Warrior Priests – The 1810 Revolution
Class Activity: The Virgin of Guadalupe
Day Three: Failed Success – 1821-1909
Readings or Activity to be decided
Day Four: Villistas, Zapatistas, & Other Notable “istas”
Class Activity: Mapping the Revolution
Day Five: A Tradition of Revolt
Activity: Mysterious Class Visitor
Week Five: The Bolshevik Revolution
Day One: Marxist Philosophy
Readings: Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
Day Two: Liberalism in Russia 1861 – 1917, Too Little, Too Late
Readings: Kaiser & Marker, The Great Reforms
Day Three: Third World Marxism: Leninism
Readings: V. I. Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
Day Four: The Revolution and Civil War
Readings: Leon Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution, and The Programme of the Communist International
Day Five: Stalin Betrays The Revolution
Slide Show: Iconography of a Revolution
Week Six: The Nazi Revolution
Day One: The Philosophy of Fascism; Absolutism, Organicism, Irrationalism
Readings: Jean Bodin, Heinrich von Trieschke, Friedrich Nietzsche
Day Two: The Inter-War Years in Germany
Readings: Alex DeJonge, Inflation in Weimar Germany
Day Three: Hitler & His Philosophy
Readings: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
Day Four: Fear, Propaganda & Tragedy
Cinema: Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph of the Will