In continuation with the theme of citizenship that my co-teacher Zsolt and I brainstormed about before I came here to teach, today I worked with my grade 13 class on a ditto that I use when I end my unit on George Orwell’s novel 1984.
In the ditto the students are posed roughly 15 different scenarios and then asked whether that scenario is an invasion of privacy or whether society has a right to know. For example, does a high school have the right to administer random drug testing of its students. Is that an invasion of the student’s privacy or in the best interest of the school.
Usually when I teach this lesson with a class of 20 students we run through it in 30 minutes. Today with a group of 10 students it took twice that amount of time. After generations of fascist and communist rule, combined with a current government that is edging away from democracy, the students are starved to discuss the balance between individual freedoms and social order and security. These decisions have been out of the hands for so long–but clearly not far from their hearts and minds.
