So recently in PLP we have been working on a unit based mostly around politics. I say mostly because politics was only one part of the whole unit. The unit consisted of reading Lord of The Flies, planning and executing a debate, and learning about the government here in Canada and elsewhere.
The first thing we had to was create 6 groups of students without the teacher in the room. To say it went well would definitely be wrong. We started off by coming up with 6 group “captains”, then picked someone who had very contrasting skills to them. This went on until we had 6 teams. That’s how we planned it, it did but didn’t go like that. We originally had a talking stick made of cardboard but that didn’t take very long to get smashed and ripped apart. There were also incidents where people tried to take charge and couldn’t quite get a hold of everyone. In the end we got all the teams made and no one was really complaining so it ended up a success.
These groups/teams would now be our project partners and our table groups for the whole unit. I was with Adam, Izzy, and Will. I will talk more about the project later. With our table groups we had a competition based on a point system that would be taking place throughout the whole unit. Points would be given out and taken away when we did certain things. Here is a list of how we could gain and lose points:
Throughout the unit we would all be reading the book The Lord of the Flies. This is a book that almost all kids in grades 10-12 read in school. It is a novel about little boys crash landing on a small island in the middle of nowhere. The boys have to find a way to look after themselves and find a way to get rescued. The book really shows human nature and how many people would react in a situation like this. Over the course of the unit we had different checkpoints in the book to make sure everyone was full reading the book. These checkpoints came as team quizzes. In our table groups we would get one test that the 4 of us would have to answer the questions to together. As you can see above, if we got 100% on the quiz, our team would get 100 points, and if we failed, we would lose 50 points.
While reading the book as a class we discussed 6 different concepts within the book. These concepts were:
– Power and Authority
– Humanity and Inhumanity
– Violence and Destruction
– Human Nature
– Civilization and Savagery
– Individualism and Community
These concepts would be used in our final project and as a typical topic for the unit. The other thing we had to do with these was write 2 paragraphs with one of the concepts as a theme. My first paragraph was about Violence and Destruction, and my second paragraph was on Power and Authority. Here they are:
In the Spring of 2011 the Vancouver Canucks went on an extended playoff run. The team reached the Stanley Cup final for the first time since 1994. Throughout the playoffs the city displayed the games on large outdoor screens and allowed big crowds to watch the games and celebrate the wins. In the final the series went all the way to game 7 meaning that the last game, which was played in Vancouver, would determine who won the Stanley Cup. The Canucks lost that game 3-0 and as the game came to an end the outdoor crowds turned violent and an extended riot took place throughout the city. Well it’s understandable that the fans were disappointed, it is surprising they would damage their own city. However, other cities have experienced similar riots after majors sports events.
The possible factors that lead to these riots are the excitement associated with the event, the frustration of losing a big game, and the feeling of being anonymous in a crowd. As a fan when you are at a sporting event the adrenaline from the game transfers into the crowd. This is why you get people cheering for their team, doing the wave and jeering at opponents or referees. With all the extra adrenaline that comes from being at the game, if the result wasn’t what you were hoping for, your emotions can turn for the worse. For some people this could only mean having an angry drive home, but for others that might not be able to control their emotions, this could lead to rioting or something else bad. As that angry emotion builds up in many fans a few may begin to act violently. The key factor that causes a few isolated incidents to turn into a full blown riot is the feeling of being anonymous in a crowd. Once other people have started to riot and tear down the city, you can feel just a part of the crowd and not an individual. This means you could join in thinking you aren’t going to be caught. There is a couple good examples of this from the 2011 Vancouver riot where a couple 20 year olds in university got caught up in the riot and ruined their lives.
One thing that may help prevent these types of riots in the future is cell phone cameras. While many people in the Vancouver riot had the feeling of being anonymous, the next day both print and social media was full of photos of the rioters. Many of the rioters were identified from the photos and were forced to face the consequences of their actions. Lots of them were criminally charged and others lost their jobs. Since most people now carry cell phones that have cameras the ability to cause violence anonymously is diminishing.
“Power tends to corrupt,” said Lord Acton, the 19th-century British historian. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This famous quote is often associated with politics, major corporations and law enforcement. The idea behind this quote is that any time someone has some power they also have the opportunity to make decisions for their own benefit. In many cases this may be unintentional and just a result of that persons viewpoint when making the decision. Most roles that have power still report to someone higher up who will review decisions. This helps to prevent major corruption as the person in power can’t expect to get away with a highly corrupt decision. However, any person who is given absolute power no longer has this oversight. Therefore the implication of the quote is that as soon as a person has totally unchecked power they will inevitably become fully corrupt.
In our society we have various mechanisms in place to avoid absolute power. For example in the Canadian political system, the prime minister and his/her party yield the most power, however their decisions still have to be reviewed and passed by the senate and ultimately signed into law by the Governor General who acts on behalf of the Queen as Canadian head of state. In business, major corporations have a independent board of directors that oversee the actions of the CEO and other executives.
There have been examples in history of politicians with unchecked power. This is described as a dictatorship and one of the most extreme examples was the rise and rule of Hitler. In modern times countries such as North Korea, Zimbabwe and Syria are ruled by dictators. This makes these countries very unstable as they are at the hands of one corrupt person who has absolute power.
Now for the main project of the unit. This would be a debate between 2 of our teams. My team would have to debate for Be it resolved that power leads to corruption. All 3 of the debates were then turned into podcasts so that we could share them here on our blogs. Here is the link for my debate.
Leading up to the debate we did many different activities, to learn how to formulate a good and strong argument. One of these activities was called pass the buck. What would happen is one person from each group would leave the room and get given a topic to speak about. When they came back they would form an argument based on the topic. Once the teacher said pass the buck, this speaker would hand over the right to speak to someone else in our group and they would have to keep the argument going. This taught us how to keep up a point on the spot, this would be very useful in our final debate.
The final debate happened on the 11th of June. We had a strong opening statement, and a strong closing statement. However we weren’t very well prepared for our rebuttal. For some reason all of our group members thought we only had 30 seconds to a minute for the rebuttal rather than 2 minutes.
The other big part of this unit was learning about the different forms of government, electoral systems and political systems. Over the course of the unit, we completed many assignments to increase our knowledge on different governments. We started with learning different types of government, including democracy, monarchy, dictatorship, anarchy, oligarchy and theocracy. With our teams we got assigned one of these types of governments to create a keynote explaining what it is, where it can be found, how it works, and some pros and cons. The next thing we learned about was the constitution. The constitution is a list of 4 fundamental principals that state how Canada should be governed. The four main rights in the constitution are the rule of law, freedom, democracy and minority rights.
Overall this was a very good and fun unit. I definitely feel like I learned a lot, especially since I never got taught anything about politics up until now.
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