[googleMap name=”Lake Catherine State Park” description=”Lake Catherine State Park” width=”490″ height=”490″ mapzoom=”12″ directions_to=”false”]1200 Catherine Park Rd, AR 71913-8716[/googleMap]
Just got back from an immersion trip to Arkansas. Every sixth week we get out of the classroom for the week and try to integrate what we’ve learned in the previous five. We’re out there, sometimes visiting somewhere history happened, sometimes hiking in the woods, and I wonder why we don’t spend all of our time outside the classroom. The kids get so much out of just exploring, and there is just so much that sparks the imagination.
Anyway, we hit Central High School, the Clinton Library and stayed and hiked at Lake Catherine State Park (see the map above). We also had a lesson on cameras that tied into our discussion of waves last cycle. I expect to post about each of these, they were all quite good.
My students watched the video about the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock and they were shocked. Truly shocked. They had already started reading the letters to and from President Eisenhower which are powerful in that they trace the story with the actual presidential records. Then one of the students brought up the video on a laptop and they all gathered around to watch. For 5 minutes afterward there was silence in the classroom.
The ugly, vicious hatred of the mob was powerful, and the one girl, Elizabeth Eckford, just a little older than the middleschoolers, just sitting there with the crowd all round, unable to speak, proud upright, but with a shell shocked look in her eyes. The video is moving, and it brings home the strength and courage of those nine kids in a world that must have seemed to be tipping toward destruction.
In going over the timeline of human rights today, we realized that it did not have a card for the civil rights struggle of the 1950’s and 60’s. One of the key events that middle school students should be able to relate to is the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas. Imagine having to have troops escort you into school. Imagine having to endure racial taunts every day when you were only one of nine African American students in the entire school.
The Eisenhower Presidential Library has some of the primary documents related to the events. They give a vivid account of the events from the perspective of what the president saw.
Gay marriage is one of those current issues that allows for a fascinating perspective on civil and human rights. Although in many parts of the US racial discrimination and prejudice are still alive and pertinent, the issue has been decided; arguing for racial discrimination has no place in government policy and in the vast majority of society. The right of gay people to marry, however, still splits the country.
Terry Gross’ NPR interview with reporter Margaret Talbot is an excellent introduction to the topic based around the court case being argued in California right now. It starts with a discussion of fact that one of the lawyers arguing for marriage rights is a conservative, while the other is a liberal. This fact allows for a discussion that is much broader than a simple left-right political argument.
The interview also goes in to the role of the supreme court and its interpretation of the constitution in assuring civil rights for minorities. Loving vs. Virginia, the case striking down bans on interracial marriage, is a precedence that is key to the arguments of supporters of gay marriage.
Gross and Talbot also talk about the “orginialist” position that many conservatives take, where the Supreme Court must interpret the Constitution based on what the people who wrote it believed rather than allowing for the changes that have occurred over the past two centuries.
It’s a fascinating interview, that delves into a number of topics relating to government, courts and human rights, and uses intelligent, challenging, but not impossible language. Our next immersion trip deals with civil rights, and I plan on playing this podcast on the drive to our camping site. I suspect the students may not be too happy about this, but if it puts them to sleep, at least they’ll be well rested when we get to our destination.
I discovered science fiction in my early teens but it was always hard to find the great stories in the midst of a lot of drivel. This list of 100 good science fiction and fantasy books seems to be a good start. Most of the books on the list are worthy, but it completely misses John Wyndham (The Chrysalids among others) and Brian Stableford (e.g. War Games). There are also a few that bored me to tears (Bradley’s Avalon) and some that I did not think were very well written (Crichton’s Sphere).
I like science fiction because it tends to deal with some of the big issues that adolescents are facing. Who am I, what’s the future going to be like, what does it mean to be human, what’s my place in society, and of course, wouldn’t it be nice it everyone just disappeared and I had the world all to myself? You also get to tie it in to the Natural World and Social World curriculum.
The Chrysalids is a great example. A post-apocalyptic novel, it looks at, among other things, institutional discrimination, the conflict between science and religion, and evolutionary theory (with it’s darker side eugenics). Wyndham addresses these issues with interesting characters and wonderful, intelligent storytelling (with a heroic journey). I’ve used this book as part of the life sciences curriculum for the tie-in to evolution, and to the history of the Cold War. But I also bring it up when we discuss human rights and discrimination.
On an personal level, I’ve always felt that the sense of justice shapes the way people react to the world on a fundamental level. In the language of Montessori, justice is a fundamental need of humanity. As we mature we begin to see justice from different perspectives, and after going over the history of human rights, I wonder if this applies to societies as well.
Lawrence Kohlberg’s famous theory about the stages of moral development center around the idea of how people see and react to justice and injustice. His first level (pre-conventional) is based on how moral actions affect oneself; if I do this then they will do that right back to me (and I won’t like it). In the second level (conventional) the main concern is how actions affect and are perceived by society; it’s not right to do this because everyone will talk about it (and I don’t like that). The final level (post-conventional), moral judgments are made based on some underlying principles; I should not do this because it will violate someone’s universal human rights (and I would have violated my own principles).
When we talk about the history of human rights, we are discussing how society has gone through these different stages. The first rule of justice, no matter the culture, is some variant of the Golden Rule, an eye for an eye. Eventually we discover the rights of the citizen, then finally the rights of humans. In humans, this moral evolution is innate in potential but not necessarily realized. Similarly is societies, after all, the Greek democracies eventually failed. But there seems to be a general trajectory of history toward post-conventional morality. Robert Wright, in his book “Nonzero” sees this path as the almost inevitable outcome of the beneficial nature of cooperation to human societies.
Of course Nonzero was written in the post-Cold War and pre 9/11 period, when the world was breathing a sigh of relief when the potential for global thermonuclear war seemed to disappear (I also remember David Rudder’s 1990 had a similar theme).
These last few weeks we’ve been talking about human rights, and today I heard a poignant article on NPR about the anti-homosexual bill being debated in Uganda. It touches on so many of the rights issues we’ve been discussing in class and more. Incitement by American evangelical pastors, whose invective against homosexuality is subsumed by the more tolerant US culture, can sow viscous seeds of hatred in a less liberal society. The Ugandan law being debated would increase the institutionalized discrimination to the point of including execution for gays and prison sentences for people who do not inform on them.
But the article also addresses Ugandans’ instinctive animosity against colonialism. Since homophobia has taken an important place in the Christian mythology of Uganda (in 1886 two dozen Christian palace pages were executed for not engaging in homosexual acts with the king). When foreigners (NGO’s and liberal governments) say homophobia is a violation of peoples’ human rights, the Christian Ugandan proponents of the bill claim cultural imperialism and colonialism. Note the phrase “Christian Ugandan” and consider the irony.
As an added bonus, there’s also Rick Warren, the American mega-church pastor, quoting Edmond Burke, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing” in his late-in-coming but nice to hear condemnation of the bill. It raises the question of moral conflict, as sincere opponents of gay rights see their works taken to their scary extreme.
Adolescents often need help to realize that words have power, sometimes much more than you realize.
Though it’s not emphasized, the article also has a lesson on checks and balances in a democratic government; the Ugandan president now opposes the bill. It also teaches about international relations and the power of diplomacy. Sweden has said it will cut international aid to Uganda and the issue is overtaking other international issues. The BBC article on the topic has a great quote from President Museveni:
“The prime minister of Canada came to see me and what was he talking about? Gays,” he said.
“[UK] Prime Minister Gordon Brown came to see me and what was he talking about? Gays.
“Mrs Clinton [the US secretary of state] rang me. What was she talking about? Gays.”
