Liberty Bell Award winner is committed to teaching citizenship and the Constitution

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Photo 1: Colin Sullivan, center, receives his Liberty Bell Award from Grand Rapids Bar President Thomas Behm as Judge Christopher Yates (right), who nominated him, looks on. Seated at left are the award winner’s proud parents: Judge Paul Sullivan and Mary Ellen Sullivan.

Photo 2: Colin Sullivan in his classroom at Hudsonville High School

LEGAL NEWS PHOTOS BY CYNTHIA PRICE

by Cynthia Price
Legal News

It does not take long, when conversing with Colin Sullivan about schools and the need to cultivate good citizens, before his great passion for education becomes
apparent.

The Hudsonville High School social studies teacher, who won this year’s Liberty Bell Award, has taught the Advanced Placement  “We the People” constitutional class since the 2000-2001 school year.

He received the award at the Law Day Luncheon held May 1 by the Grand Rapids Bar Association and Western Michigan University-Thomas M. Cooley Law School.

Each year the award is given “to honor outstanding citizens within the local community,” and recognizes “service performed by a non-lawyer citizen or a non-profit organization that has made an outstanding contribution to the cause of justice or to advancing public awareness of the Constitution and our legal system.”

Among the cheerleaders for Sullivan in the audience at the luncheon were his father, Judge Paul Sullivan of the 17th Circuit Court, and his mother Mary Ellen.

Colin Sullivan is also the godson of Dykema Gossett’s James Brady, who earned an award at the same luncheon. Brady is unstinting in his praise for the young educator’s dedication and  kindness.

Judge Sullivan’s fellow Circuit Court Judge Christopher Yates nominated Colin for his work on “We the People” as well as his above-and-beyond  approach to teaching overall. Judge Yates knows whereof he speaks because his wife Janice is a long-time, highly successful “We the People” coach and previous Liberty Bell Award winner.

In fact, it was Janice Yates who originally set Colin Sullivan on the path as a “We the People” coach. She was at Hudsonville High School in 1999 when Sullivan started there, and passed her knowledge on to him when leaving for East Grand Rapids.

“I was an immediate believer in the value of the program, as a way of introducing not just the fundamental  principles of our government, but the importance of active civic participation and being an engaged citizen — not just knowing the facts about our Constitution but making it a part of our daily lives,” Sullivan adds.

Disappointingly, inclement weather prevented this year’s Hudsonville “We the People” team from attending  the competition. Members of the East Grand Rapids team, the team coached by Janice Yates, were able to compete by staying over the night before, and eventually went on to win 8th place in the entire U.S.

But, says Sullivan, there was a silver lining. “Our school administrators were consulting with me all day Friday, trying to make arrangements to get them there, and even met with the students during fifth hour. It means a lot to me and a lot to the students that they were so concerned.”

Since East Kentwood also missed the state competition, school administrators and the local “We the People” coordinator later set up an individual competition between the two teams. “You really can’t replicate the atmosphere of being at the state capitol, being under that pressure created by the competition, but it was still really good,” Sullivan says. “And of course, the real value is the process, what the kids go through to prepare.”

Sullivan also teaches U.S. History and non-AP Government at Hudsonville. He says that although it is imperative to be sure his students learn enough facts to pass the standardized tests, he uses current events to challenge them to think.

“I was finishing up my unit on the civil rights movement when the riots in Baltimore happened,” he says. “So I used it to generate a lot of questions for my students.
It’s provocative and there are no easy answers, but I try to inspire the kids to think about it and to consider all the different views on the political spectrum before they decide what they think.”

The lifelong Grand Rapids resident graduated from Catholic Central High School and from Michigan State University with a degree in Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy/Secondary Education in 1998.

Tragedy struck when he was paralyzed in a car accident in late 1999, but the wheelchair-bound educator does not appear to recognize that as a limitation, never mentioning it. He went on to earn his Master’s in Educational Administration, also from MSU, in 2004, and continued coaching both boys’ and girls’ tennis at Union High School until 2003.

Sullivan feels that programs like “We the People,” Science Olympiad, and Destination Imagination/Odyssey of the Mind represent the direction education is heading.
“We the People is what education is supposed to be — not the teacher being the source of the information and just multiple choice tests, but the students being made aware of the information and taking ownership of it and then being asked to think about it. Just having these active discussions where there isn’t a clear answer, really working through difficult problems, collaborating with others on answers that may not be readily available, that’s what education really needs to be,” he says.

“We’re in a real interesting time in education. We’re on the cusp of evolving into something that education hasn’t been. Since the start of the 20th century or so, it’s been about preparing students for an industrial economy, but the kinds of jobs that allowed a high school student to graduate with just a diploma and make a good living aren’t as plentiful any more. Students will survive in this economy because they can identify and analyze a problem, work with others on a solution, and communicate their ideas well,” Sullivan says. “Those skills are what I try to teach them.”

“So, yeah, We the People has been a really valuable program,” he adds with a smile.



 

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