The other class also successfully develop two topics: teen pregnancy and whaling so now we have 4 to choose from. I still don’t think students are really serious about choosing a topic. For example, lots of boys voted for teen pregnancy because they thought it was funny. Not because they really cared or wanted to investigate it for a term. Maybe they are simply not used to schools being places where you actually explore something that is genuinely interesting and important. Or maybe they didn’t believe that they had a right and responsibility to participate in the decision making process. I’m not sure, but it didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped with this class. However, taking the 4 issues I created a mind map of related ideas and possible activities. On Monday I will give a copy to the class and they will need to make a statement about what they think is the best one and any other activities they think would be good. I am then going to appoint a committee from members of both classes to decide which one we go with.
Then I want students to reflect on the following in their blogs:
“True democracy is when the people most immediately affected by the decisions made, participate themselves in that decision making process”
1) Describe the steps we used to decide on the topic
2) What was good about this process?
3) What could have been done better?
4) Which steps could have been made more democratic?
5) Does democracy have to involve always letting the people decide, or does it sometimes require a leader to make the decision? If so, when did this happen in our process?
1 comment:
Point number 4 "Which steps could have been made more democratic?" Would you need to ask "how" as well?
I am really enjoying these blogs. They are fascinating!!
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