Wednesday, April 2, 2008

open

"If you don't explore your mind and the views of others,
you will miss out on the opportunity of growth"- Prof. Johnston

Besides having to re-take a previously-failed stats class and waiting to replace a grad school level upper division psych class...ive managed to find myself overly-intrigued with my Ethics & Education class, even if ive only attended one class so far. My professor, who presented the quote above, is awesome. My education teachers always claim that they're encouraging us future teachers to emphasize deeper meaning, mastery of concepts and personal connections with students...but then these same teachers do the complete opposite. But Im pretty freaking excited about this ethics class that will focus on morality, questioning the meaning of life, how our choices affect the people around us...and how that should be implicated in the classroom to enhance the thinking of developing kids.

On the first day, we were given a scenario and then a choice.
I invite you lovely people to share your opinions.
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SCENARIO: You and a group of people are on a boat. A storm hits and the boat starts sinking! However, in order to save yourself and the other passengers, you MUST choose ONE PERSON to kick off.

a) a 60-year-old doctor; successful in his practice and is working towards curing diseases

b) a 50-year old captain of the boat; excellent sailing & navigational skills

c) a 40-year old pastor; involved in gang prevention, community service

d) a 30-year old mother; husband and three children

e) your close childhood friend; who recently went to jail for burglary, but swears they are changing their life around for the better

f) a 2-year old little girl

g) YOU, a 20-year old college student; amibitious and lively

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Sounds like a kind of challenging situation, huh? This definitely took a little bit of thinking and pretty intense conversation arose from this activity. But it was really interesting to get a sense of other people's values and opinions.

If you're too nice and can't decide, you can choose NOT to kick someone off...but then all of the passengers [including you] will go down. And yes, you may choose to sacrifice yourself.

Considering that a miracle won't save you, you don't have super powers, and YOU have the ultimate decision in this situation....who would you toss overboard?

2 comments:

adonis (old account) said...

my first choice would be myself, since im probably the most useless out of the bunch and contributing the least to society

second would be the captain - im sure he'd be honored to die at sea, or maybe hes actually a crazy swimmer and can just bust an aquaman

Just Ray said...

i would sink the captain

1 . if he was so good at sailing and navigating we wouldn't be sinking in the first place

2. the issue is that were sinking not that we can't sail or find our way home