WINGS students learn justice system’s ropes

Wendy Leavin, who teaches fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders in the North Merrick School District’s gifted program, WINGS, says she likes her lessons to be pertinent to the real world. Even as students develop reading, critical thinking, research, writing, interpersonal, technology or public speaking skills, they can acquire content knowledge about important topics and fields.

That is why Leavin’s students have worked on classroom projects dealing with the law, broadcast journalism, climate change, nutrition, genetically modified organisms, workers’ rights and the National Security Agency. One of her and the students’ favorite exercises, which Leavin has now done annually for about 17 years, is a mock trial.

“For talented kids, skimming the surface is easy,” Leavin said. “It requires the grit and persistence to really go deeply into something.”

She said her classes split into teams of six, who prepare either the plaintiff or defendant’s side of a civil law case. Some students choose to play attorneys, others witnesses. They learn about legal concepts like negligence, foreseeability, duty, breach and the reasonable person standard. They also learn what makes for good opening and closing arguments and direct and cross examinations. They also study the list of objections and their legal underpinnings.

Leavin said she looks for cases that children can relate to, drawing affidavits and other materials from mock trial curricula that the New Jersey State Bar Association maintains for different age levels. This year, Leavin’s fourth-graders examined a case about a fictional child who snuck onto a roller coaster despite not meeting its height requirements and was injured.

An important part of the exercise, as with any real civil law trial, is thinking about responsibility, Leavin said. At one point, the students contacted a traveling carnival to ask for expert opinion on how to safely operate a roller coaster.

WINGS classes meet about once every nine school days. The fourth-graders spent most of the year learning about the justice system and preparing their mock trial. At the end of May, they acted out the trial. Leavin’s husband, Paul, an attorney who works in Manhattan, volunteered to play the judge. General education students served as the jurors, allowing them to also get involved in the fun and learning and WINGS students to present their work to their classmates.

“It’s all pretty new and challenging for them,” Leavin said. “They learn a lot of different things. It’s all a stretch for them — the answer isn’t in a textbook or multiple-choice question.”