Here's a current event that has resounding and frightening implications for education and free speech in Canada: The University of Calgary has threatened to arrest, expel, suspend, and fine members of the university's pro-life club if they display graphic images in a (peaceful) anti-abortion protest scheduled to occur this week. Many people disagree on the issue of abortion and the validity of the students' display, but it seems to me that free speech is once again taking a beating on a university campus. Those in power appear to believe that free speech is a right only for those who agree with them. In other words, everyone's equal--but some are more equal than others.
How might we integrate such a current event into a Social Studies classroom? This is a hot-button topic, as anyone involved in the controversy is aware. If it were to arise in my own classroom, I would try to steer it away from the question of abortion and towards questions regarding free speech: Who sets the limits on free speech? The law, a Human Rights Tribunal, or a university? Those bodies might say very different things about what qualifies as "hate speech." What is our freedom of speech supposed to be used for? For subverting prevailing cultural norms, for troubling the hegemony, for "speaking truth to power"? We should ask our students (and ourselves) to look a little more closely at who holds the power nowadays--at what characterizes the prevailing ideologies--at where hegemony is inscribed. I suspect that such scrutiny, if applied to most Canadian institutions, will reveal that the reins of social control are no longer held by conservative "WASPs". Has there been genuine progress, or has one flawed group been replaced by another? This is a legitimate question to ask, especially in the context of a history/social studies class which examines the evolving power structures and ideologies of the state.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Pretty Well The Best Website Ever.....no big deal.
Ten by ten is I think the perfect website for socials teachers. We have been told time and time again how important it is to keep in touch with current events and make sure we know world issues. This website is easy, interactive, and is ever-changing. It looks each hour at the top stories world wide from top news sources and presents them to you in an eye catching interactive way. You can they chose the headlines you like and check out the full story. Here is how the website explains it:
"Every hour, 10x10 scans the RSS feeds of several leading international news sources, and performs an elaborate process of weighted linguistic analysis on the text contained in their top news stories. After this process, conclusions are automatically drawn about the hour's most important words. The top 100 words are chosen, along with 100 corresponding images, culled from the source news stories. At the end of each day, month, and year, 10x10 looks back through its archives to conclude the top 100 words for the given time period. In this way, a constantly evolving record of our world is formed, based on prominent world events, without any human input."
It seems to me that this website makes it so easy even just to get a snippet of major news stories that there is no excuse not to keep up. The other thing is by making it appealing to the eye, and interactive it would be easy to get students to use it and hopefully get them more informed on world news. Ultimately we may be able to create a generation of Socials students that are, "critical and not cynical."
"Every hour, 10x10 scans the RSS feeds of several leading international news sources, and performs an elaborate process of weighted linguistic analysis on the text contained in their top news stories. After this process, conclusions are automatically drawn about the hour's most important words. The top 100 words are chosen, along with 100 corresponding images, culled from the source news stories. At the end of each day, month, and year, 10x10 looks back through its archives to conclude the top 100 words for the given time period. In this way, a constantly evolving record of our world is formed, based on prominent world events, without any human input."
It seems to me that this website makes it so easy even just to get a snippet of major news stories that there is no excuse not to keep up. The other thing is by making it appealing to the eye, and interactive it would be easy to get students to use it and hopefully get them more informed on world news. Ultimately we may be able to create a generation of Socials students that are, "critical and not cynical."
Model UN
I would like to take this opportunity to say thank-you to everyone in class. I had so much fun in today's Model UN, and am now really looking forward to Friday's meeting. I hope everyone else like myself left class wondering just how they could incorporate this activity into each and every one of their socials classes. (Perhaps in setting up quasi-UN's to debate the major themes from differing countries view points, at a particular point in time. i.e. Great Britain puts forth a resolution to go to war against Germany, and whether or not the world community agrees or disagrees).
I must admit I was very nervous and very concerned about exactly how we were going to do this activity, as I had no prior experience with anything along these lines. But now I just wish I had, had this experience in high school. What a great opportunity to see how world affairs are dealt with on the world stage. The need to teach our students to speak and confront authority is more prevalent in my mind now than ever.
Additionally, I would like to comment on the brilliant minds and pure balls that many in our class possess. Well done to everyone who spoke at the podium and from the audience. I am honoured to be in your company, and hope to learn even more from you over these next couple of weeks.
Cheers!
I must admit I was very nervous and very concerned about exactly how we were going to do this activity, as I had no prior experience with anything along these lines. But now I just wish I had, had this experience in high school. What a great opportunity to see how world affairs are dealt with on the world stage. The need to teach our students to speak and confront authority is more prevalent in my mind now than ever.
Additionally, I would like to comment on the brilliant minds and pure balls that many in our class possess. Well done to everyone who spoke at the podium and from the audience. I am honoured to be in your company, and hope to learn even more from you over these next couple of weeks.
Cheers!
Are your students going to be tapped?
Interesting article regarding the "tapping" of online youth communities by the US State Department. The lessons of Obama's historic use of social networking to attract and engage youth voters seems to have been learned by the State Department. What impact does the power and resources of the "State" have on the potential influence of a non-partisan, critical social studies class?
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/technology/5169248/us-taps-online-youth-groups-to-fight-crime-terrorism/
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/technology/5169248/us-taps-online-youth-groups-to-fight-crime-terrorism/
Canadian History taking back from the Americans!
Well last night as I semi-dozed off while watching the news, I was jerked awake by the new Social Studies teacher in me! A story about Canadian History being almost rewritten!! Ooooh what exciting stuff!! So 17th century engraving shown here has historically been thought to depict early contact between Europeans and the original inhabitants of New England....word on the archeological and scholastic street is that it is actually a portrayal of John Guy meeting with the Beothuk in Trinity Bay...Newfoundland!!!
Oh the exciting world of History right?? I just thought you would all enjoy this tidbit of information that would truly be bringing history into today's world for our students...
Article Review: Visual Arts and History
Here's my article review, on a piece entitled "Interdisciplinary Forays Within the History Classroom: How the visual arts can enhance (or hinder) historical understanding" by Liz Dawes Duraisingh and Veronica Boix Mansilla, in Teaching History December 2007 23-30.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Teachers Asking For Help
I know Jason will be like, wow 2 posts in a night after 3 months of silence what's going on but I felt I needed to call attention to the following website: donorschoose.org. It is a new website that fundraises for teachers.
This is where the American education system is at right now. There is not enough money for classrooms, not enough for chairs, and not enough for a positive learning envrionments. So teachers have taken matters into their own hands.
People have the ability to donate money to classrooms and fund projects they feel are helping their children. What does this mean for future classrooms? Will people suddenly feel like donating their money to have not schools, or will economic disparity simply increase as rich neighbourhoods donate money to their local schools.
There is also the possibility that the projects that teachers want to get funded will be so mind-blowing that people will hand over their life savings because they are so impressed. I for one vote we create a website for donations so that our fearless leader can take us on a trip across Europe to study the effects the second world war and cold war have had there. If you think about it, by teaching us phenomenally well, the extrapolated passion and experience we will have for the subject will be exponentially more important because of the large amount of fresh young minds we will impress upon during the tenure of our careers.
This is where the American education system is at right now. There is not enough money for classrooms, not enough for chairs, and not enough for a positive learning envrionments. So teachers have taken matters into their own hands.
People have the ability to donate money to classrooms and fund projects they feel are helping their children. What does this mean for future classrooms? Will people suddenly feel like donating their money to have not schools, or will economic disparity simply increase as rich neighbourhoods donate money to their local schools.
There is also the possibility that the projects that teachers want to get funded will be so mind-blowing that people will hand over their life savings because they are so impressed. I for one vote we create a website for donations so that our fearless leader can take us on a trip across Europe to study the effects the second world war and cold war have had there. If you think about it, by teaching us phenomenally well, the extrapolated passion and experience we will have for the subject will be exponentially more important because of the large amount of fresh young minds we will impress upon during the tenure of our careers.
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