Tales from the Classroom: Course Development
Posted on May 25, 2004 @ 11:13 am
My department recently informed me that I’ll have the opportunity to teach an introductory “global issues” course in the fall. It’s a freshman-level class, and it hasn’t been taught too many times in previous semesters — which means that I have quite a bit of freedom in terms of developing the course’s overall direction and content.
Just out of curiosity, if you were a freshman entering college this fall and had signed up for a global issues course, what would you want/expect to see covered? For instance, how much coverage of the current “war on terror” is too much? Would a broad theoretical treatment or a regional case-study approach (i.e. sections on Latin America, the Middle East, the former Soviet Union, and so forth) seem more beneficial? Is spending a lot of time on the legacy of the Cold War still relevant to kids who were born in 1986, or should more time be devoted to so-called “new” global issues like environmental scarcity and human rights?
Obviously, I have my own ideas of what’s appropriate, but I wonder if I might be a little too close to the discipline to accurately gauge what someone who isn’t a student of international affairs might expect from an entry-level course. That being said, I’d appreciate any ideas you’re willing to share!
Posted by Jess | Filed Under Tales from the Classroom |
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I would certainly think that “globalization” should be on that list– in its economic and even institutional terms: what’s the role of the UN? I’m a huge fan of the UN, but I think people misunderstand its purpose and how it works in the world. When I mentioned “globalization” in terms of a paper last fall, most of my students stared blankly at me like I was speaking in tongues.
As far as how much is too much when it comes to terror? I wish I could begin to answer that! I think you would have to do a case-study– the ME would be the most interesting because that’s what’s going on right now, but I hesitate to push it as a case-study because I think people are generally so focused on it, that they lose sight of the fact that it goes on everywhere. Maybe a week of general overview and a week of case studies just to get some balance? Or, maybe — and this just came to me and had I known this would get long I would have emailed you!– but maybe just doing several case studies. In picking diverse cases they’d get an overview of the diverse forms it takes as well as a more broad picture of where it is in the world. Could be really eye-opening.
How about the role of the U.S. in nation building?
You could examine previous efforts (successes/failures) in Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan and then compare/contrast these to the current situation in Iraq.
The U.S. will be devoting large amounts of our financial and military resources to Iraq for the next couple of decades. Your freshmen students will be inheriting these issues from the current administration. This is probably the most profound shift in political philosophy in the U.S. since WWII.
Since Bush has determined that it is the responsibility of the U.S. to bring democracy to Iraq (and the rest of the Middle East), I think it is important to prepare these young people for their future roles in this effort. Will they be viewed as defenders of freedom or imperialists?
It’s pretty much given that most freshman are relatively uninformed of even the most popular global issues, so I’d suggest kicking the course off with some heated discussions regarding the War on Terror/Iraq issues just to build a foundation of interest. (I would guess that you’ll get a lot of kids expecting a semester full of discussions on this alone.) If you can’t pull them in with the obvious, I’d say you’re in for a long semester. Logically speaking, I think this could lead into discussing what part our media (and even educational system) plays in forming our nation’s opinions and why our focus is so narrow on a global scale. Addressing how grossly uninformed the average person is should open the door for whatever you’d like to discuss outside the norm. Some projects aimed at understanding perspectives from outside the U.S. would be helpful. Better informed freshmen typically make the next level of classes more useful. It would be nice to hear that kids are getting taught how to look at things in an objective manner, especially when it’s all too common to have a professor’s personal political views shoved down your throat. I know you’ve always been careful not to be guilty of that, so it’s great to hear that you can take advantage of having the opportunity to help shape a course. Strategery.
Hey, I know I’ve been a snickering voice on ur blog in the past, but this is an issue I care about being a Freshmen at UC Santa Cruz this coming fall. If you have not read it I would strongly suggest “Blow Back” by Johnson Chalmers. He’s a PHD at some school and his book is entirely about the US’ role abroad and how our military presence internationally has, unbeknown to the american public, shaped our image. Specifically it talks about the common day attrocities of Okinawa Japan do to US troops and military stations in Muslim countries and the negative impact. For class structure I would make it four units: 1) The US impact abroad and it’s effects; 2) post cold-war era (my friends and I find this fascinating and I DO think it is relevant, it has shaped things today; 3)the role of rising rival nations and a possible future power struggle (keeping in mind China and the US’ rise to power; and 4) a factual and scientific approach to current global issues such as global warming, pollutants (dioxin especially, read Zodiac by Neal Stephenson… yes he’s a sci-fi writer but Zodiac is based entirely on science), rising international (china again) use of limited resources. For this last issue I would keep in mind the feasibility of such technologies as nuclear energy (might it be a good idea?), hybrids, fuel cell, oceanic wave-powered electric generators, etc.
-Just some thoughts, if you want I could suggest a milieu of books, my real email is “hyro79@earthlink.net”
-Jon
Thanks for all the ideas, everyone! This has been a huge help.
Have them read Ender’s Game. Or lie to them a lot, they won’t know shit about “global issues” or anything else for that matter. If UGA kids don’t know dick about American government, they won’t know anything about the world.
Don’t ask Greg for advice or you won’t get to cover anything that happened after……..well, anything A.D. for that matter.
Have fun with this course, you deserve it after having to teach American for so long. Can I audit it?