Extreme thinking
Yesterday one of the students in the class presented her curriculum rewrite assignment. She has chosen to rethink how she is teaching the extreme environment unit in her intermediate science class. I woke up this morning quite excited about what she presented because she hadn’t simply changed the activities or even gone into more depth. She had actually decided that she had some very fundamental problems with why she is being asked to teach the unit at all. After reading the texts and the teachers guide for the unit and then considering the BC curriculum learning outcomes, all based on American material with a Canadian twist, she felt strongly that the underlying message is that we need to conquer these extreme environments so as to lucratively exploit the resources. Fascinating stuff.
So the question came up as to how frank about her bias she might choose to be. Does she present her position to the students and “color” their thinking on it? Or, does she keep quiet about her own views, present the unit believing that through their own exploration of the extreme environment material particularly in light of other work that the students have done on bias and such, the students will draw their own conclusions and eventually, or not, recognize the underlying issues? I love the dilemma itself. I love too that in this example it is so clear to her but it makes me wonder how much as teachers we really question why we are teaching what we teach.
For me personally I can relate this to my own struggle with my own thinking about computer/technology teaching. On one hand it is motivating for students and an excellent tool. Computers provide ways of connecting and sharing resources such that we’ve never seen before. On the other, where are we going with technology? What about the sell, sell, sell aspect; the constant need to grow and improve; the role of huge megacorporations in manufacturing and storing, buying and selling information; the exploitation and pollution internationally because of computer manufacture and disposal? There are so many questions, perhaps the least of which are we blindly buying in to the teaching of technology because it is fun, cutting edge and a new “cool” in motivating students? How are we doing with teaching the technology bias from both sides?
June 19th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
I just read this and it is June - what a gift it was!
You have a responsibility to question what you are being told to teach - look who is doing the telling! As Canadians we have choices, but what is stopping us making the difficult choices. Stop paying lip service to Canadian Aid - the vested interest groups are making a fortune in the name of Aid to third world countries. Fair Trade is a joke - Drugs to treat the symptoms associated with AIDS are so expensive that babies suffer with thrush because the drugs cost too much - so they just suffer and die - while drug companies post record financial gains.
June 20th, 2008 at 7:28 am
I’ve just this morning finished reading Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine and so couldn’t be more in line with your thinking Liz. Thanks for your comment. From the book, which is so very readable, well written and incredibly well sourced, I feel that I’ve had my eyes opened even more not to drug company profits, although they certainly fit with her main thesis of corporatism, but to the incredible lack “freedom” of the free trade movement. Klein provides a compelling argument for the contradiction between free trade and democracy. I highly recommend her book. Or, for starters, check out her website at http://www.naomiklein.org/main or her many articles posted on The Nation website at http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/naomi_klein. Both sites are worth following.