The arc of any project lends itself to close analysis.
From the first step planning stage, through active experiential learning, then a culminating event or production, and, finally a reflection, the role of the teacher as mentor and facilitator is crucial.
As International Water Day 2011 arrives, I look forward to seeing what all my blog colleagues write. On a topic for which there is far, far too much to say, what will they pick out? In this blog, I’ve already treated International Water Day in my last two postings, indirectly – by avoiding the issue of water specifically and staying, as TOK does, on the level of general thinking skills and overall approaches to any issue. It is exactly by doing so that TOK contributes most to understanding global issues: by supporting and strengthening the analytical skills that are taught also in other subjects, and by developing student awareness of how different areas of knowledge work to contribute to our overall understanding. However, TOK does move much closer to the subject matter of a global issue in two other main ways.
For one thing, critical skills cannot be developed in a void. The framework for identifying and analyzing perspectives that I suggested in my last blog posting is not of any value unless it is used to guide exploration of a specific topic. It is meant to be applied. It would be useful in preparing the TOK presentation or in other thinking through the course, and also useful if TOK were to team up with other subjects within a school to treat a particular global issue.
Happy International Women’s Day on its 100th anniversary! Wandering through web media on this event, I’m intrigued by how many things it represents. (UN Women video, Michelle Bachelet ) It’s a celebration, certainly, of women’s achievements and women’s roles, attended in some countries by demonstrations of appreciation. (I quite like the idea of being given flowers!) It’s also a time of appreciation of all those – women and men, governments and organizations – who champion the rights of women. Clearly, though, it is also a time to recognize continued inequalities, violence against women, and denial of rights; gaining security and equality continues to be a struggle across the world. In any context where global citizenship is the focus, the relevance of the day may be self-evident. What, though, is the relevance to Theory of Knowledge, a course on critical thinking?
One of the most important goals of teaching TOK is to connect an exploration of knowledge issues which takes us into concepts with a grounded reality that demonstrates the relevance and importance of critical thinking skills. And so, here are just a few ways that I’d introduce International Women’s Day myself.
Describing the financial crisis of the past three years as a “systemic breakdown” in ethics, Rush Kidder of the Institute for Global Ethics has responded to a report from the American Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. His article is potentially useful in a classroom because it is short and clear, and touches quite a number of knowledge issues. It deals centrally with different interpretations of causes and cites the report’s distinction between causes in nature and causes in human activity: the financial crisis has been “the result of human action and inaction, not of Mother Nature or computer models gone haywire.” Kidder’s article could be fruitful to stimulate discussion on distinctions between description and search for causation in the human sciences and history, as opposed to the natural sciences. With a few prompting teacher questions, it could be more useful still in encouraging students to draw distinctions between, on the one hand, fact-based description of how people have behaved (particulars) and do behave (generalizations), and, on the other, values-based ethical commentary on how people should behave. These distinctions are crucial to examination of knowledge, and the immense impact of the financial crisis demonstrates quite dramatically their relevance to understanding what goes on in the world.
Eileen Dombrowski
In this Doughty Centre video, Truett Tate reflects on the connection between personal and moral integrity in his career and the lessons he learned from his business experiences. One of the issues raised in this video is whether there is a practical distinction between the social responsibility of corporations and the ethical behaviour of the individuals that work for them.
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
On this year’s United Nations Human Rights Day (December 10), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon dedicated the observance to defenders of human rights:
In our era, we depend greatly on science for some of our most important public and private decisions: we turn to science for evaluation of the safety and benefits of the food we put in our mouths and the medical treatments we take, or for knowledge on global warming and alternative energy sources. When a peer reviewed article by a Nobel laureate is retracted from a prestigious journal, then, we have reason to take note and wonder about the breakdown of our of our most significant forms of validating scientific knowledge: peer review.
With an apology, Linda Buck has this month retracted a 2006 paper on how odours stimulate brain cells in mice, on the basis that she has been unable to replicate the published findings in her own lab. In 2008, she also retracted a 2001 paper published in Nature, the highly reputable journal on science, after finding inconsistencies in the data on which the conclusions were based.
“In edgy times, economically and morally, people focus more on what’s owed to them as a right than on what they owe others as a responsibility.” So comments Rushworth Kidder in yesterday’s article on his Global Ethics website. It is entitled Local Mosque, Global Responsibility and deals with the controversy surrounding the proposed mosque in New York near what Americans call “ground zero”. I recommend this article to anyone teaching ethics, as it urges a shift of perspective from the narrowly blinkered view of personal demands to a broader view which includes others and their needs and rights as well. It also invites a discussion on what “rights” are and how the significant ethical and political concept of human rights can be applied and misapplied.
Kidder concludes, “I’d note that while ethics is certainly about standing for conscience, it’s also about bringing others along with patience and gentleness. Surely, of all our universal responsibilities, the duty to build a better world — in practice as well as in theory — stands paramount.” Yes. Thank you, Mr. Kidder.
“This is a historic day and I think every now and then, the human species advances somewhat in our evolution, and today was one of them,” declared Maud Barlow, chairwoman of Food and Water Watch and former Senior Advisor on Water to the President of the United Nations General Assembly. Just a few hours ago, the United Nations General Assembly passed the resolution that water and sanitation is a basic human right. On the resolution introduced by Bolivia, 122 countries voted in favour and 41 nations abstained.
I’m disturbed that the right to water and sanitation is controversial particularly in rich countries even while a billion people lack access to safe drinking water and 1.5 billion children under the age of 5 die annually because of diseases linked with water and sanitation. I’m particularly disturbed that my own country abstained. However, at the moment I’m joyful that politics and ethics have come together for a victorious moment (See my blog July 17). Much of what I write about thinking critically in the world carries a troubled edge. But today I celebrate. I invite you to join me!
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