Period 2 - Ella Yan

[CALIS]

Thank you for participating in TIRP outreach! This folder is for your four session reports. This is a public forum and we encourage your professors and teachers to review your reports for feedback. Make sure your report of classroom activity is appropriate for public viewing.

Remember:
1. Each entry must be submitted within 3 days after each session.
2. Entries need to be at least 500 words. It is your responsibility to save a copy of your report.
3. Your reports should focus on the content of the TIRP session. Spend no more than one paragraph discussing logistics. Include the key IR concepts and specific student responses.
4. Select "Post Reply" not "New Topic" when submitting each entry. This will ensure that all your reports are posted in a way that will be easy for CALIS staff, professors and teachers to read.


A CALIS staff member will review your entry each week and leave a posted message approving it toward your performance evaluation. Thank you for your participation in TIRP!
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Report 1:
On time: 3/3
Substantive: 6/6
Student-specifics: 6/6
Total: 15/15

Ella, great attention to detail in your report! Keep up the great work. -KM on 2/24

Report 2
On time: 3/3
Substantive: 6/6
Student-specifics: 6/6
Total: 15/15

Nice work, Ella! I'm glad to read about all the positive student reactions to your activities! Best of luck next week. -KM on 2/26

Report 3
On time: 3/3
Substantive: 6/6
Student specifics: 6/6
Total: 15/15

Ella, it looks like this was a really engaging class! I'm glad the Librarian's dilemma sparked such mixed reactions because it demonstrates the complicated nature of ethics in everyday situations. -KM on 3/9

Report 4
On time: 3/3
Substantive: 6/6
Student specifics: 6/6
Total: 15/15

This is a great final report, Ella! I'm glad you had students circle values for reinforcement of your past weeks' discussions and it sounds like your team kept the class very engaged. We the staff at CALIS sincerely appreciate your commitment to TIRP this semester and hope to see you again in the fall! -KM on 3/25

[Yi Yan]

To start off our first TIRP session this week, we wanted to get the students thinking about what “ethics” means before moving on to consider different ways of weighing an ethical dilemma. With this lesson, we primarily wanted to students to leave with at least a nascent understanding of ethics is, exposure to a few different academic perspectives from which to consider ethical dilemmas, and a heightened awareness of how ethics plays a role in everyday situations outside of the classroom. As we discussed different case studies, vocabulary and concepts we asked the students to keep in mind included “ethics”, “morals/morality”, “obligations”, “consequences” and “virtues”, as well as the three ethical perspectives: utilitarianism, rule-based ethics, and virtue-based ethics.

Following the “Three Ethical Perspectives” lesson outline, the first thing we did, before really introducing the topic ourselves, was ask students what they thought “ethics” entails—what the word means to them. Immediately, one student hit the nail on the head by responding that ethics revolved around “morals; what’s right and wrong.” After taking a few more answers, we outlined that one main goal of our lessons would be relating classroom concepts to real life.

With that, we began incorporating case study examples: the two trolley scenarios, which involve choosing between passively allowing five people to die or acting to sacrifice one person to save those five, and the transplant case, in which a doctor with five sick patients in need of organ transplants encounters a healthy patient who would be a compatible donor. The doctor considers making the healthy patient “disappear” so his five sick patients may benefit from his organs. After reading each scenario out loud, we asked students to quickly vote on which choice they felt was “right” before giving some students a chance to elaborate and explain how they arrived at the decisions. While opinions were more mixed for the trolley cases, especially as we posed further hypotheticals such as “what if the one person is a family member?”, just about everyone agreed that the doctor would be wrong in actively killing one healthy person, even to save five, citing that a doctor is trusted, a professional, obligated not to harm, etc.

Next, we introduced the three ethical perspectives by using the reference worksheet and describing how each perspective would approach the three smaller case studies. To encourage participation and allow students to demonstrate their understanding, we asked the class to individually consider how each of the ethical perspectives could apply to our next case, United States v. Holmes involving a ship crew member’s decision to sacrifice certain passengers during a shipwreck, before dividing students into three sections, asking each group to present how their assigned perspective would tackle the situation to the rest of the class. We also asked students to brainstorm any better methods of choosing which passengers to sacrifice.

The “rules-based” group questioned Holmes’ decision to throw male passengers off the lifeboat and took issue with the social implications of “women and children first”, stating this is sexist. Interestingly, the “utilitarian” group suggested that, if the goal is preserving the younger generation and their caretakers, allowing younger passengers priority in such situation may be more efficient. Lastly, the “virtues-based” group felt that asking passengers to willingly give up their space in the lifeboat would have been best, as those who died would have made the decision themselves and could know they would save others with their sacrifice.

Finally, as part of our wrap up, we showed the class a clip of the Joker’s “Social Experiment” from the film The Dark Knight and asked students to consider the ethical dilemma presented in those scenes. Next week, we will continue that discussion, return to the three ethical perspectives, as well as consider a further case study in detail.

[Yi Yan]

For our second TIRP session, we wanted to continue the theme of connecting the concepts we present in our lessons with real life ethical dilemmas. This week, we discussed the “Joker’s Social Experiment” scenes from the Dark Knight, reinforcing the class’ understanding of the three ethical perspectives and how those may be applied, before listen to and discussing an NPR clip entitled “In Asia, The Perils of Aborting Girls and Keeping Boys.” We used this opportunity to introduce the 4 Worlds analytical tool, and we aimed for students to leave with an understanding of how abortion and consumer eugenics affect the 4 worlds—political, social, economic, and cultural—of a global society, as well as developing a consideration for the demographic and social consequences of gender discrimination. Some key concepts and vocabulary included “one child policy”, “population control”, “population density”, “gender imbalance”, and “correlation”.

To start, we reviewed last week’s session covering the three ethical perspectives and the Dark Knight clip. We asked the class to demonstrate their understanding of the three ethical perspectives by posing discussion questions such as, “Can it be right to take lives to save lives?” or “How can it be right to kill other people to save your own life?”, and asking students to identify which ethical perspective they embodied in forming their answers. While one student said she, in the scenario set up by the Joker, would sacrifice herself so that others may live, other students were quick to point out that, through they may currently believe it’s morally better to sacrifice themselves first, in a real life or death situation, it’s likely their primary instinct would be self-preservation, with the caveat that they would feel guilty about their actions later.

Our new lesson for this week incorporated “In Asia, The Perils of Aborting Girls and Keeping Boys.” After listening to the podcast clip about gender preferences in Asia and sex selective abortions, we gave students a few minutes to work with a partner or two to brainstorm the implications of a highly imbalanced ratio of men to women. We then furthered this discussion by introducing the “4 Worlds” chart and asking groups to structure their ideas by categorizing potential consequences into the political, social, economic, and cultural spheres. While a couple groups mentioned worries of decreased representation for women, especially in government and policymaking, since these societies would likely frown upon women in power, as well as concerns about an increase in violence against women, including assaults, kidnappings, and human trafficking, due to the dearth of marriageable women in these countries, a couple others were more optimistic and posited that, in the long term, these gender imbalances would break down stereotypes and open more possibilities. They had the idea that, eventually, a shortage of women would force industries that traditionally employ predominantly female workers—cleaning services, textiles, childcare, etc.—would turn to hiring more men and, with that, give rise to better treatment of workers overall. As well, another group optimistically suggested that the social position of women would improve and daughters will in time become more valued as people come to realize how rare girls have become.

Overall, it was interesting, and somewhat refreshing, to hear the ideas the students brainstormed; they came up with some implications I hadn’t even considered. I’m excited to come back next week and challenge their ideas of ethics and what’s “right” when we talk about the “Librarian’s Dilemma”.

[Yi Yan]

Now that we’ve established the three ethical perspectives used to examine ethical dilemmas and worked with the class on evaluating the ethics of a handful of both hypothetical and real-life cases, we wanted to introduce a new case in our third TIRP session, “The Librarian’s Dilemma”, emphasizing the concept of “right vs. right”—that sometimes both sides of an argument can be equally correct and that two or more equally compelling values may need to be considered when thinking through an ethical dilemma. Throughout this lesson, we wanted students to really consider whether there is a “best way” to make an ethical decision and whether there is always a “right” answer. We again utilized the three ethical perspectives—utilitarianism, rule-based ethics, and virtue-based ethics—and introduced students to the DEPPP thought process, which involves describing values and assumptions, explaining dynamics and causes, predicting consequences, prescribing a course of action, and finally, deciding on a method of participation. Key vocabulary included “ethical values”, “confidentially”, “right to privacy”, “police state”, and “moral rationality”.

As this lesson was rather reading heavy, we asked students to participate by “popcorning” paragraphs of the case to their classmates. Initially, the passage describing the librarian’s dilemma only states that a librarian is called by a man asking for information about state laws concerning rape. She takes down the caller’s information to research an answer for the man, but before long, a policeman who overheard the conversation and is looking for a rapist in the community comes over to ask the librarian for the caller’s information.

We stopped then to ask the class which course of action they would take—whether they would pass on the caller’s information to the policeman—and opinions were pretty mixed. Some students felt that it would be fine to turn the contact information over to the police; after all, if the caller had nothing to hide, he shouldn’t mind. Others weren’t as comfortable simply complying with the police, thinking the caller was perhaps just a student genuinely researching local laws, and asked which “rules” would apply in this situation—do librarians need to give information to the police whenever asked, or are librarians bound to confidentially, the same way a doctor is? We told the class that the rules weren’t exactly clear here, and that was precisely why this case is so ethically complicated.

Returning to the case, we read more about the two sides of this situation the librarian was considering—her loyalty to the community and desire to assist the police in maintaining law and order, versus her wish to maintain the caller’s confidentially and right to privacy, as well as concerns about the slippery slope toward a police state.

In discussing the two competing values, we also asked students whether they would be okay knowing their phones were being tapped or internet searches were being monitored by police. Again, the response was mixed, with some saying they had nothing to hide, but more students expressed concern about being watched when the situation was applied to their own lives.

We then discussed sets of competing values, used the DEPPP thought process to think through both courses of action the librarian may have taken, giving the caller’s information to the police or maintaining privacy, and lastly, asked students to apply the three ethical perspectives to this case before leaving the class to consider this and other ethical dilemmas that have no “right answer”.

[Yi Yan]

For our final TIRP session on ethics and human rights, we decided to start off with an activity called “A Vocabulary of Virtues” to get the students thinking about the key vocabulary that can be used to discuss and cluster virtues and characteristics in everyday conversations, as well as which virtues they see in themselves or aspire to develop. We hoped that this activity would serve to sum up some of the topics we’ve discussed over the past few weeks and remind the class of different ethical values to keep in mind as they go on to solve their own ethical dilemmas as soon-to-be high school graduates.

As well, we asked the class to consider the 5 Traits of a Trojan, how those compare to the standard values established at their own high school, and whether they felt any virtues should be added or left out. Finally, we discussed “Rights & Responsibility: The Role of Children” using a framework of children’s rights and responsibilities written by UNICEF. Overall, we wanted to class to consider what virtues are, what responsibilities are, what <I>their</I> responsibilities are, and which rights and responsibilities children should have, if they should have rights and responsibilities at all. Key words included “rights,” “responsibilities,” “disadvantaged,” and “humane.”

First, for “A Vocabulary of Virtues,” we handed out a worksheet with clusters of interrelated, common virtues such as “thoughtful”, “loyal”, or “kind”. From each group of words, students were asked to circle the word they felt was the greatest asset to have and draw a box around the word that they most embodied. Once the students had a chance to give the vocabulary some thought, we started off the discussion by asking what it meant to have “strength of character,” which one student answered meant sticking with what you believe in and standing up for your beliefs, no matter what they may be. The class really seemed to appreciate that morals and values may be different for each person, and that respect for others’ values was key. We asked students to volunteer which words they boxed or circled and why, before asking about connections they noticed between words. Students responded that they saw a number of relationships between the virtues shown on the worksheet, with certain virtues serving as a prerequisite for others. For example, one student argued one must be “clever” and “creative” to be “resourceful.”

Next, as a real-life tie in, we discussed the 5 Traits of a Trojan we have at USC, and asked if the students had established a similar set of values at their high school. Their school had outlined similar virtues relating to scholarship and community involvement, but I was particularly surprised to learn that one established virtue was being technologically skilled. Though one student pointed out that computer literacy is very necessary for modern students, that virtue nonetheless struck me as rather unique and specific. When asked about virtues they would like to see established at their school, one student suggested “respect for your environment”, meaning keeping the school clean and keeping school property in good condition. Many students agreed that showing “respect” overall ought to be valued.

Lastly, although one student felt strongly that children should not have rights and responsibilities, we read over some of the children’s rights and responsibilities outlined by UNICEF. Because the class, as high school seniors, is on the border between childhood and adulthood, we especially focused on reinforcing the virtues needed to honor each of the listed rights and responsibilities. After discussing the pros and cons, most students were of the opinion that establishing a moral code, using rights and responsibilities, among children at an early age is necessary for raising ethical adults.