Last October, I wrote a post thinking about the 21st Century Education movement that concluded with an idea for a new course:
What if you started a course exploring the issue of climate change with back-to-back showings of An Inconvenient Truth and The Great Global Warming Swindle, not in some lame and fallacious attempt to provide “balance” to the topic, nor in a transparent end-run around the integrity of science under the guise of “teaching the controversy,” but as a springboard for sustained and rigorous transdisciplinary inquiry? Imagine spending the subsequent weeks and months methodically tracking down the claims and counterclaims, learning about the science and evaluating the rhetoric, and devising strategies to separate “signal from noise” in the flood of information about a contentious topic . . . think how many 21st Century literacies—ecological, scientific, media and information, political, economic—such a learning expedition would build and call upon.
Well, I quickly managed to ensnare my friend and wunderkind colleague (and edublogger) Peyten Dobbs to help me propose, develop, and teach the course, and my principal leapt at the opportunity when we presented it to him (having Peyten on board no doubt helped). So here we are, two and a half weeks into just such a learning expedition, one that will likely rank among the most interesting of my career. It’s high time I put up a blog post with a few details and some early observations.
The official title of the course is Writing Workshop: Environmental Writing, and it’s one of a slate of semester-long writing courses that our 8th graders can sign up for as a supplement to their year-long English course. Workshop has been a course offering for at least the 15 years I’ve been here, but this year marks a substantial (and needed) revision in that we’re offering themed sections (others include screenwriting, journalism, and literary magazine) with an emphasis on publication to an authentic audience. Compared to the previous incarnation of Workshop, which had the students writing a series of short papers with perfunctory purpose (a descriptive paper, a persuasive essay, etc) and an audience of one (the teacher), Environmental Writing looks to capitalize on the the allure of real-world relevance and controversy and provide compelling reasons for writing—writing first as a tool for learning about complex issues and later to communicate our findings and positions about what we’ve learned.
True to the blog post that started us on this path, we’ve started the year by jumping straight into the political controversy and cultural confusion surrounding the issue of global warming: on Friday we completed our viewing of An Inconvenient Truth, and this week we’ll begin The Great Global Warming Swindle. We’ll follow these two films with a short piece by science writer Peter Hadfield that takes a critical look at both. By this point we expect the students to feel both bewildered and bestirred, suffering from some serious cognitive dissonance and ready to dig a bit deeper to find out just who is telling the truth, so we’ll set them up in groups to identify and investigate their questions and make sense of the confusion. Ultimately, each group will tasked—after choosing a format and audience—with communicating what they have learned, both about the issue in question and learning in general.
At least that’s the idea. There are lots of details still to be worked out as we go, as we’re not entirely sure what directions the class will want to take and want to leave the options open. So far, we’ve settled into a comfortable routine of watching film for about half the class period and then quietly writing to process our individual thoughts, feelings, and questions. Then again, perhaps “comfortable” is exactly the wrong word—already, I think, the students have a sense for just how much of an intellectual and emotional roller-coaster ride they have ahead of them. Conversely, Peyten and I are pleased that relevance and controversy have animated the classroom and ignited learning as we had hoped. Starting later this week, we’ll inaugurate a class blog where two students per day will give updates, sharing what we’re up to and what they have to say about it—I’ll be sure to provide a link once we have it up and running.
Well, I started this post promising some early observations, but I see I’ve gone on long enough (and the hour is late enough) that I’ll just have to save them for now. I’ve already got several months’-worth of blog fodder after just the first couple of weeks, so watch this space. And fire away with your questions—one of my favorite things about blogging is how comments and push-back from my readers (all five of you) help me question my assumptions and hone my thinking.
I can’t wait to hear more about this as it continues – I can’t even imagine having taken a class this engaging and challenging as an eighth grader. In fact, as I was reading this I realized I can’t remember the name or face of my eighth grade English teacher! (Of course, eighth grade was the year my best friend and I wrote a novel together in our spare time, so I was getting plenty of writing practice outside of class…)
Rebecca, I have to laugh out loud in that I ALSO don’t remember the name or face of my 8th grade English teacher. I could take you to the exact classroom in my old Middle School building and show you exactly where my desk was (and where Tracy Turville and Anne Sumner both sat, to be honest), but we both seem to have been taught by Charlie Brown’s English teacher. Any time I start feeling too self important, this brings me back to earth.
Of course, I have more excuse than you for forgetting in that you’re a lot younger than me
Peter Hadfield is hardly a reputable source of disinterested analysis, I am afraid.
Like Al Gore and Martin Durkin are? We’re not making that claim for any of them . . . it’ll be up to the students to dig and discover. Anyway, James, welcome to our conversation (you’ve got some impressive ones going at your blog, I must say). Stay tuned!
I am pleased that you are doing this – long overdue
I don’t envy you the job of deciding who has the best lie : ))
James, I’m thinking further about your comment, and you touch on something vital that we’ve already had come up in class. What, exactly, do we mean when we say a source is “disinterested”? When we say a source is “biased?” Back during the tobacco wars, should those who said cigarette smoking leads to lung cancer have been summarily dismissed as biased? Can one be objective and opinionated at the same time? At what point does confirmation bias overwhelm objectivity?
Looking over your blog, I’d hardly say you were “disinterested,” yourself. Is that a bad thing? Given your understanding of the science, would disinterest be ethical?
Anyway, these are really interesting questions which we be wrestling with in the months to come.
Clark,
My fear is that by pitting someone who is well versed on science of climate change (Gore) against dishonest propagandists (the GGWS producers) you are doing your students a disservice.
By disinterested or not biased, I don’t mean someone without a strong opinion. I mean someone who doesn’t have ulterior motives (like getting paid to misrepresent the science). I have no such motives. I worry about climate change because the science tells us we should.
What your students need is exposure to material that honestly portrays the science. An Inconvenient Truth has repeatedly been found to be an honest and fair representation of the science of climate change in 2005. The science has evolved since then, of course, as has Gore’s presentation. Films like the GGWS never did represent the science fairly, so why expose students to them, unless you have the resources to fairly critique them? Turning to Peter Hadfield suggests you aren’t yet prepared to do that, I fear. Hadfield appears to offer an even-handed take, but he misrepresents Gore’s presentation repeatedly. The reality is both side are not equally guilty of distorting the science. One side has a stellar record and the other’s is abysmal.
Academics and the media have for far too long given climate denial far too much credit. The simple facts are that 98% of climatologists agree with the basic science of anthropogenic climate change. We’re long past the point where that’s a subject of legitimate debate, so why imply otherwise to your students?
Or perhaps I have completely misunderstood your mission. I do, however, come to this subject with a great deal of experience as a communicator and a scientist. So I would be happy to help.
James, I think you are at least somewhat misunderstanding our “mission,” but I definitely understand where your concerns come from. Believe me, I share them. I’ve had the same conversation in the past week with a trusted colleague in our Science Department, and I originally started this blog post to address and think through his questions. It just took so long in this post to lay out the general outlines of the course that I had to hit “publish” and go to bed, so expect another post soon on these issues. In brief, though, let me stress that Peyten and I are not science teachers, and our “mission” here is broader . . . in some ways this is as much a course in what you might call practical epistemology as anything else.
For what it’s worth, the problems I have with Hadfield have much more to do with tone than substance. I don’t think he is even remotely accusing both sides of distorting the science equally (particularly over the course of his entire video series). At any rate, we’re certainly not presenting him as the final word on the debate between Gore and Durkin. Again, more on that in a new post sooner rather than later (I hope).
Finally, a quick question for you . . . I’m curious as to how you ended up here? Given your WNC location, I’m wondering if you follow my brother (@hansthecat) on Twitter. He’s got pretty deep Asheville connections.