PTSD

democracy: a social experiment, part II

Well, it went okay. I think they had more fun trying to guess the various actors (one kid guessed them all) rather than proposing options and I didn't have much time at the end to discuss some of the concepts I wanted to talk to them about. But it wasn't too bad and it got them interacting with each other rather than listening to me talk.

I still am not sure what this World Politics business is all about--I think most of them get issues of balance of power; role of the hegemon; alliances and regimes and so on but if you were to wander into my class and ask them to recite "the three strands of feminism" (don't ask--this was one of the topics in the study guide handed out to me a couple of days ago), then they'd probably turn blank faces at you. But (hopefully), they would be able to tell you what feminism offers to the study of world politics and how it is a critique of other ways of analysing world politics.

Is that enough? I don't know. Do they need to know what deterrence is (definition of), the three types of "decision-making models" and so on? I don't think so. I mean, I taught the higher-level research course for the past two semesters--I know that by the time they get to that class, these kids are not going to remember much of anything they will be learning in my World Politics class. But, just maybe, they will remember some of the exercises, arguments and debates we are having.

I do live in hope.

Labels: clever kids, democracy experiment, hopeful, so what's the country then?, teaching world politics

posted by Priya @ 12:33 AM