Triple A Learning IB Blogs

Differences can be illuminating.  In my last couple of postings, I’ve told stories of students stumbling upon cultural differences and learning from them, though with some distress in the process.  As we recognize other viewpoints, we gain a greater understanding of our own assumptions, beliefs, and practices in context of a larger world.  Moments of recognition, though, often lead to knowledge most effectively if accompanied by some analysis of where those isolated differences sit within broader cultural or political perspectives.

This week, then, I want to focus on a recent issue played through the media: whether aid to Africa is beneficial or, horrifyingly, actually damaging.  Dambisa Moyo’s book, Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way For Africa, has been reviewed in major press since it came out in 2009 and she has been extensively interviewed.  In most interviews I’ve read or seen, the emphasis has been placed on what she herself does not claim to be a new argument: that aid to Africa in its historic and much of its present form does not work.  Her assessment of the problems of aid and her proposed solutions, though, have sparked considerable discussion on aid to Africa.  I’ll use the debate on this particular topic to suggest a way of treating perspectives analytically, and I’ll provide some guiding questions for use in TOK.

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