News

Taming Texas News and Announcements


Houston Bar Association News

The HBA’s Teach Texas Committee is once again providing volunteers for the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society’s Taming Texas classroom program. Since the program was launched in 2016, it has reached more than 15,000 middle school students in the Houston area. Full story and related photos at https://www.hba.org/committees/teach-texas/

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Houston Bar Journal

June 2016

Bringing Lone Star Law to Houston’s Seventh Grade Students

By David A. Furlow

During three months from February 16 to May 17, 2016, the Houston Bar Association became Texas’s first bar association to pilot the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society’s “Teach Texas” program to seventh grade students. Throughout the greater Houston area, volunteer attorneys and judges entered 576 classrooms to teach 9,534 seventh grade students in 28 schools how the Rule of Law came to the Lone Star State.

Full story at http://www.hbaappellatelawyer.org/2016/06/bringing-lone-star-law-to-houstons.html

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Texas Bar Journal

June 2016

Lesson Plan: A New Judicial Civics Project Takes Off

By Warren Harris

Texas students got their first glimpse of a new state civics initiative this spring. The Taming Texas Judicial Civics and Court History Project is an innovative program designed to teach seventh-grade students about the Texas court system. Taming Texas couples a new book on judicial civics and court history—the first of its kind in the country—with a classroom curriculum taught by lawyers and judges. In its debut, Taming Texas reached nearly 10,000 students in the Houston area.

Full story at Harris_TamingTexas_June2016.PDF

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The Texas Lawbook

April 2016

Teach Texas” Teams Lawyers, Judges for 7th Grade Judicial Civics

By Patricia Baldwin

Thanks to the successful Teach Texas pilot program in Houston-area schools this spring, future seventh graders in Texas will learn about the state’s court system and how the history of the courts is intertwined with the rest of Texas history.

Along the way, the professional image of lawyers and judges is likely to be polished as shiny as a teacher’s apple.

More than 8,700 seventh graders have been reached this spring, said Laura Gibson, president of the Houston Bar Association, who adopted the judicial civics education program as her presidential initiative.

“So many schools have signed up, I’m a little worried that we’re wearing out volunteers,” noted the partner at the Houston office of Dentons.

She explained that the Teach Texas program matches a lawyer and a judge to team teach back-to-back sessions in a school.

The program uses a textbook published by the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society and curriculum developed by the Law-Related Education Department of the State Bar of Texas. Financial support comes from the Fellows of the Historical Society.

Full story at News_Taming_Texas.PDF

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Houston Bar Association:

April 2016

HBA’s Teach Texas Committee Brings the Rule of Law to Life

by David Furlow

The Houston Bar Association is looking for judges, justices, and lawyers to help teach Houston area seventh graders about how the Rule of Law came to Texas. Opportunities to volunteer, and to share stories about the Rule of Law with our community’s students, will continue in late March, April and May of this year.

During February and March, many Houston Bar Association members, and staff have participated in the HBA Teach Texas Committee’s introduction of a new seventh grade judicial civics textbook in area schools. HBA President Laura Gibson and HBA Director Warren Harris, acting on behalf of the Teach Texas Committee, have recruited judges, attorneys and Houston area school districts to participate in a project organized by the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society and the State Bar of Texas Law-Related Education Department.

Full story at http://www.hbaappellatelawyer.org/2016/04/hbas-teach-texas-committee-brings-rule.html