Marshall Kane wrote:at99sy wrote:NoOneImportant wrote:"Useful idiots," as Lenin referred to them, in the truest sense of the words.
This is exactly why they must be educated to look for real information, different perspectives, and most of all to ask difficult questions.
On all of my exams there is a portion where the student must ask thought provoking, or insightful questions about the subject. It takes some
training but they all get it eventually.
When they realize that another teacher has attempted to indoctrinate them with bs it is most heart warming moment.
cheers
sy
Hi Sy,
Interesting. May I ask how your frame this section of your exams?
Well I can tell you that it is no easy task. Students are rarely ever in the position to ask good questions, they are trained to answer them. So I start with the rationale that there are always at least two sides to an issue.
That any piece of writing will have a certain amount of bias to it regardless the author.
That some pieces of writing are all bias.
and if we only allow ourselves to read a text book prepared by a major publishing house to fit specific education models and criteria, or if we only get our news from FOX, CNN, MSNBC etc then we can only at best get one side of an issue which is at the least disrespectful of the oppositional point of view.
Sometimes we have mock arguments in class, or we will look at how rumors get spread etc. They usually buy into this pretty fast.
Then we start to look at heavily biased articles. not difficult to find, and we pull out all the statements that generalize and paint a particular image for or against a "topic" whatever it may be, such as abortion, obamacare it doesn't matter really for the exercise.
Then we will loo at those statements and frame questions around them.
Example statement: "Obamacare will lead to the destruction of the middle class and result in a prolonged period of economic disintegration for America."
we look to see if there is any support for the statement or if it is just hanging out there like a dirty sock. A question could be as simple as
"What data is available to portray obamacare as a negative influence on the nations economy?"
that is just a simple one but I teach them to look for unsupported statements, grandiose claims, one sided arguments, rhetoric, and tell them to be investigators. You need to either prove or disprove what this article or story claims. Other times we look at particular issues and they have to thoroughly explore the topic and create a portfolio0 of evidence that summarizes and explains the issue, create a timeline or sequence of events of it, major participants, cause-effect relationships, major influences, arguments for and against, pro's and con's and the whole time collect evidence from two oppositional perspectives. At the end they have to write their own private conclusion about the issue using evidence to support their POV. Then they have to present a brief to the class and get grilled by the students and myself.
Some get it quicker than others, some have a great difficulty coming to terms that there can even exist another point of view. take abortion and gay marriage for example. It has been an eye opening process for many of them. to do this you have to build a high level of trust with the kids and treat them with respect but also being firm when need be and holding them accountable. I have only had a handful of students who rebelled against this method of teaching. They tend to be absolute rote memory learners who really learn and understand very little they just want to memorize everything so they can do well on the test. I don't teach memorization games, consequently they don't like me. But that's okay I never have them again as a student.
we're talking 1-2 per class out of 25-28.
Thank you for your interest. I hope this provides some insight into my teaching style.
cheers
Tomorrow I begin the second semester teaching two courses of Sociology which I have never taught before, but am very fond of. It plays very nicely with the class I created on Human behaviors and acts of Genocide.
SY
[quote="Marshall Kane"][quote="at99sy"][quote="NoOneImportant"]"Useful idiots," as Lenin referred to them, in the truest sense of the words.[/quote]
This is exactly why they must be educated to look for real information, different perspectives, and most of all to ask difficult questions.
On all of my exams there is a portion where the student must ask thought provoking, or insightful questions about the subject. It takes some
training but they all get it eventually.
When they realize that another teacher has attempted to indoctrinate them with bs it is most heart warming moment.
cheers
sy[/quote]
Hi Sy,
Interesting. May I ask how your frame this section of your exams?[/quote]
Well I can tell you that it is no easy task. Students are rarely ever in the position to ask good questions, they are trained to answer them. So I start with the rationale that there are always at least two sides to an issue.
That any piece of writing will have a certain amount of bias to it regardless the author.
That some pieces of writing are all bias.
and if we only allow ourselves to read a text book prepared by a major publishing house to fit specific education models and criteria, or if we only get our news from FOX, CNN, MSNBC etc then we can only at best get one side of an issue which is at the least disrespectful of the oppositional point of view.
Sometimes we have mock arguments in class, or we will look at how rumors get spread etc. They usually buy into this pretty fast.
Then we start to look at heavily biased articles. not difficult to find, and we pull out all the statements that generalize and paint a particular image for or against a "topic" whatever it may be, such as abortion, obamacare it doesn't matter really for the exercise.
Then we will loo at those statements and frame questions around them.
Example statement: "Obamacare will lead to the destruction of the middle class and result in a prolonged period of economic disintegration for America."
we look to see if there is any support for the statement or if it is just hanging out there like a dirty sock. A question could be as simple as
"What data is available to portray obamacare as a negative influence on the nations economy?"
that is just a simple one but I teach them to look for unsupported statements, grandiose claims, one sided arguments, rhetoric, and tell them to be investigators. You need to either prove or disprove what this article or story claims. Other times we look at particular issues and they have to thoroughly explore the topic and create a portfolio0 of evidence that summarizes and explains the issue, create a timeline or sequence of events of it, major participants, cause-effect relationships, major influences, arguments for and against, pro's and con's and the whole time collect evidence from two oppositional perspectives. At the end they have to write their own private conclusion about the issue using evidence to support their POV. Then they have to present a brief to the class and get grilled by the students and myself.
Some get it quicker than others, some have a great difficulty coming to terms that there can even exist another point of view. take abortion and gay marriage for example. It has been an eye opening process for many of them. to do this you have to build a high level of trust with the kids and treat them with respect but also being firm when need be and holding them accountable. I have only had a handful of students who rebelled against this method of teaching. They tend to be absolute rote memory learners who really learn and understand very little they just want to memorize everything so they can do well on the test. I don't teach memorization games, consequently they don't like me. But that's okay I never have them again as a student. :) we're talking 1-2 per class out of 25-28.
Thank you for your interest. I hope this provides some insight into my teaching style.
cheers
Tomorrow I begin the second semester teaching two courses of Sociology which I have never taught before, but am very fond of. It plays very nicely with the class I created on Human behaviors and acts of Genocide.
SY