Welcome to Constitution 101

0:00- Hi, I'm Sal Kahn, the founder and CEO of Khan Academy.

0:03- And I'm Jeffrey Rosen, the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center.

0:07- So Jeff, I'm super excited about this Constitution 101 course. Why should students be as excited as I am?

0:14- There's nothing more exciting than learning about the Constitution. It is the mission statement of America. It's what unites us. It is the ideals that allow us to have a productive democracy. Sal, I'm so excited to work with you, to bring the essence of Constitution 101 to students across America.

0:31What excites you about it? - That we're able to do this course with the National Constitution Center. There is no organization on the planet that understands the Constitution better and understands how it affects our everyday life. They really are the world leader here and but to be really making it a rich living course that have real world participants in our democracy, talking about these very important ideals and ideas as they go into practice.

0:59But for it to not just be a passive class where you listen to a politician or you listen to a judge, or you listen to an academic go deep, but you also as a student have the chance to participate in it, answer questions, make sure that you get mastery on the subject matter.

1:15- We've brought together a group of the leading thinkers in America, of diverse perspectives from the left, the right, and the middle to explore what they agree and disagree about the Constitution. We asked them why should students learn about the Constitution?

1:30And everyone had a different answer, but it was so inspiring. Some people talked about it being a land of opportunity, extending the blessings of liberty to all, reminding us how far we have to come, and how we've fallen short in the past and can learn from our mistakes.

1:46And they're really reminding us what unites us as Americans. We're divided about politics, it's a polarized time, but we're all united about the centrality and importance of our constitutional values.

1:56- I couldn't agree more. There's so much cynicism right now, especially about political discourse, and I think everyone watching is going to see that this is a place where people can disagree, but they can disagree in respectful ways, and we actually all benefit from that disagreement.

2:13So I think you're probably as excited as I am now to jump into this course. So let's get started. Jump in, start watching some videos, start reading some articles. Start taking some of those exercises, those unit tests, those course challenges. And hopefully you're gonna get just as excited about our Constitution and our democracy as myself and Jeff are.