If I were teaching a class on business, I would absolutely include information on this protest. In my experience, it may come as a surprise to some students that the majority of Americans are not rich. This would fit in well with activities on the distribution of wealth. One of the groups involved in the protest, We Are the 99%, offers a powerful collection of photos and narratives by the poorer 99% of Americans. This would work well with graphs illustrating the fact that, while the wealthiest 1% have seen their real income more than double in the past few decades, the rest of America has seen little to no growth. And, of course, this problem is not uniquely American. Students could be invited to present information on the distribution of wealth in their countries, or in other countries that they research. It could also be fruitful to combine these with activities looking at the distribution of wealth between countries. Whatever the angle, articles on this protest would be a great addition to a unit on business, government or wealth and poverty.

The RSA Animate series of video clips is an interesting way to present some very sophisticated ideas to learners. The visual nature of the lectures helps comprehension and helps hold student interest. The lecture above looks at how recent developments in cognitive science change our understanding of human nature. Other lectures deal with concepts like charity, choice, and education, just to name a few. In addition to the various content areas that these lectures could be used in, they would be a great addition to activities working on lecture listening and note taking.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find the RSA website so easy to navigate. For example, I couldn’t find a page that indexed all of the animated lectures. That said, there are many articles and other materials on the website that would be interesting to use in class, so poking around a bit is not a bad thing. If you’re looking for a shortcut, though, here is a search that highlights the RSA Animate lectures. Another approach is to browse through their YouTube channel, which includes many non-animated lectures as well.

The first is The Economics of Happiness.

This documentary links a number of global issues (climate change, terrorism, etc.) with personal issues (depression, loneliness, etc.). I haven’t seen the whole thing, but the trailer brings up a lot of great stuff: true cost economics, the wastefulness of our “efficiency” of scale, and the importance of local communities. For more information, there is a recent review in Yes Magazine.

The other movie (thanks Khalid) is I AM.

It’s directed by the director of The Nutty Professor and Ace Ventura and the trailer is a little melodramatic, but the premise is interesting. He went to a wide variety of people (including personal favorites like Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky) and asked them two questions:

1. What’s wrong with the world?
2. What can we do about it?

The ultimate conclusion seems to be that we are all very interconnected, and that we find happiness and health through taking care of each other. I think both of these movies (or at least clips from them) would work well in a unit on happiness and global issues.

Personally, I feel like this would be a great addition to a global issues-themed class, as our attitude is fundamental to how we respond to the world. I’m very interested in creating some happiness materials myself, and I’d like to offer it as a content elective in the future. I suspect that administrative responsibilities may keep me out of the classroom until next spring, though, so we’ll see.

In the meantime, I’m starting to collect happiness resources. For starters, there was a recent issue of Yes Magazine devoted to sustainable happiness. There are lots of articles, along with some visual aids.

There’s also a great list from Larry Ferlazzo that includes a bunch of infographics, along with articles like this one in The Atlantic on happiness and money.

If you know of any happiness materials, please feel free to share them in the comments. I’ll do likewise, as I find them.

Bigelow’s activity starts with a game created by the coal industry, asking students to mine cookies for chocolate chips. Students buy a cookie and a mining implement (paperclip, toothpick, etc.), then trace their cookie on a piece of paper. They have five minutes to mine it, the goal being to make as much profit (in terms of chips) as possible. They are fined for any bits of cookie that end up outside of the traced border, but as long as they fit their destroyed cookie inside the line, there are no penalties.

After completing the activity, Bigelow had his students look critically at the game, asking them what it was trying to teach, and what it was ignoring. Among other things, this is a wonderfully clear way to demonstrate the problems of a purely profit driven system, and the risks of externalizing environmental consequences.

I bet this activity would work well with a wide range of students. I love the idea of looking critically at an educational activity and considering the motivations behind it. This would fit well into a unit on the environment or energy consumption, but it would also fit into one on environmental justice. For example, it could be linked with an activity looking at who gets the largest benefits from coal mines, and who bears the brunt of the costs.

Like the Story of Stuff, this information is presented fairly simply, with an explanatory cartoon. Thus, I think it could be comprehensible to many English language learners. They also offer captions and an annotated script so students can read along. The video isn’t too long, either, at just over 8 minutes. Another nice thing about it is that, despite the fairly bleak picture, the tone remains mostly positive.

I haven’t used any of these materials yet, so to get a better understanding, I took a look at one topic in particular. I chose the 9-12 unit on Microfinance. The lesson plan itself is 37 pages, with detailed descriptions of the standards met, and several page-long readings on women and microfinance. It starts with a set of visual aids, a collection of photos and maps that help introduce the issues.

Next, students watch a short (2 min.) video clip profiling a woman in Aceh, Indonesia who is rebuilding her business after the tsunami. There is also a reading that gives additional information on her story, and discussion prompts are included with the visual aids. Many ideas for extension activities are also given, including reading graphs, understanding laws, and learning about gender inequality in the US.

The second part of the lesson uses a 2 min. interview with a woman from the International Food Policy Research Institute. She discusses how improving the economic status of woman also benefits children. Slides in the visual aids take students through a summarizing activity and a discussion of the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals. Again, many extension activities are given.

Based on this lesson, I would absolutely look to use these materials in class. They are full of great vocabulary, and engaging activities. And I think the range in grade levels available would make it easy to find something that would work with a class at a variety of English proficiencies.

Via World727

I have to confess that I’m no expert on Cesar Chavez, but these resources seem like a great way to make issues of human rights and food production relevant.

Thanks Larry

The show itself covers the original lesson, and also has several of the students rewatch it as adults. In my class today, I used only the original lesson, which goes for about 13 minutes starting 4 or so minutes in. The whole video is available on the Frontline website. I also used some of the discussion ideas from this site which has information on Jane Elliot’s continuing development of discrimination education ideas.

This was a perfect video for my current students, who are teachers in the midst of creating lesson plans dealing with democracy and diversity. In addition to being an engaging way to bring up issues of race, it is also a great example of an extremely creative lesson plan.

As a follow-up, I had students discuss the following questions in groups:

1. What do you think of the activity done in this video? What do you like / dislike about it?
2. What are some of the divides in your country / classroom? What are the different rules (written or unwritten) for people on each side of the divide?
3. How would you describe students who are “going to succeed” compared to those who are “stuck in place”?
4. How are teachers treated differently in your organization? (gender / sexual orientation / race / religion / other)
5. What are some activities you have done / could do with students to help them learn about discrimination?

Thanks Jane!