Having just redesigned my Introductory Unit on perspectives I was reminded about the interactive website, Political Compass. I have stopped using it since our Middle Years teachers all jumped on it. But I now realize the role it can play in developing a student’s understanding of perspectives as a key TOK concept.
Web address: http://www.politicalcompass.org
She’s feisty, articulate, smart, beautiful and emphatic on stage – and I respond with admiration. Why, then, do I also react with such irritation? It’s just that I really don’t like the way she deals with knowledge.
Did you listen to the closing arguments in the debate I featured in my last posting, as Dambisa Moyo gives her final words in support of the motion that “aid does more harm than good in Africa”? Did you listen to the closing argument given by Stephen Lewis, one of her opponents? Although listening to the entire debate is necessary to understand the ideas in play – and it would be time well spent – these final sections do give a representative snapshot of styles of argument and some of their knowledge issues.
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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