Apocalypse Theories Post 1

Based on the assumption that schools are democratic institutions where students come to learn about the both the nature of democracy as well as the nature of the traditional disciplines I wanted to plan this term’s curriculum in a way which involved students as much as possible. I started out by asking them what concerns they had about the world and about their own lives. We used these concerns as the basis for deciding a topic of study for the term. Then I handed out packets of newspaper articles I had been collecting over the last 6 weeks and arranged them into general categories such as conflict, health, natural disasters, local politics etc… Using a sheet I had made, each group had 10 minutes to skim through the articles, choose one that fitted with a concern that was raised or a new concern and to write the social issue it represented.
We now had 25 students with 4-5 possible topics. In their groups I gave them an A3 worksheet which they used to choose the top three that they thought would 1) be worth exploring 2) That they could take action on. So now we had the list down to about 18, but I wanted it down to the top two. They were given a list of the following decision making processes:

•Methods for deciding:

–Teacher dictates
–Class vote for the top three
–Outside judge decides according to some criteria we give them
–A committee is elected to decide for us
–We draw it out from a hat

Using a vote, most students elected for a committee. Furious discussion ensued as they decided which person from each group would be the representative on the committee. Finally it was decided and 6 students went outside the classroom with the sheets groups had used to decide on the top 3. The rest of the class watched 10 minutes of a documentary while the committee decided. They came back with human rights abuses and apocalyptic theories. Now I just need to do the same thing with the other class and we need to choose from the top 4.

It is quite a good way to demonstrate different decision making processes. When explaining the different methods I related them to, referenda, dictatorships, representative democracy etc…And like any democratic process there was an element of messiness. Because there are two classes to get one topic of inquiry for, I have about a period where I don’t have a confirmed topic to think about diagnostic assessment. Perhaps this is partly what videos are for – otherwise I could spend a bit of time finding out what they know about democracy and dictatorships.