More Philosophy

So tonight I've prepared for tomorrow's "philosophy" class. Truth be told, this is one of the only classes I actually prepare for. And honestly, I don't have to prepare for it, but I want to. Sometimes you just want to work. It's strange. Anyway, the Capital Punishment thing has gone on for too long, so tomorrow they're going to start a discussion on abortion (cue gasps). Yes, this is not a friendly topic, and it wouldn't be allowed in many US high schools (least of all from a fake teacher like myself), but the French don't care. I can talk about whatever I want, because I'm a native English speaker. So, tomorrow I've come up with a plan to make this issue go a little smoother than CP did. The articles in the book on Social Ethics that I have (thanks again) are a bit too hard and technical, so I'm going a different route. Tomorrow they will get a worksheet with basic abortion vocab and some questions about what they already think in terms of the moral status of a fetus and the government's role in the whole thing.

This is certainly controversial, and many of the questions on the sheet are really hard (what makes a human a "person" ). They're not going to know what to say for some of them, but that's the point. I want them to be challenged. I want them to realize that there's more to think about than they thought. That's the whole point of all of this. Tomorrow will start with a partner activity, and I'll go around and discuss with the groups to see what they think. Towards the end we'll go over it as a class. Last time I started right away with an article, and it didn't go so well. This time I'm warming them up by having them think about what their opinion is to start with. At the end of class they'll be getting a seriously truncated version of Judith Thomson's famous "A Defense of Abortion" article. By truncated I mean: they will only read the story about the violinist. I chose that because a story will be easier to talk about than a straight up argument, and it's a good starting point for the "right to life" discussion (I thought about Marquis' personhood article, but I think these folks might struggle too much with that). Anyway, I have a class of Quakers, so we'll see if their life-loving sympathies extend to fetuses. I doubt it, but you never know.

Next week we'll talk about the story and whether or not it's analogous to pregnancy, and what it has to say about our intuitions when it comes to supporting the life of another person. Then we'll follow it up with a practical discussion of why people get abortions, what alternatives could be made available, and what problems might we run into if we actually outlawed it. I hope this gets them a bit more riled up than last week. If they are pro-choice, I'll push the pro-life side. If they're pro-life, I'll push the pro-choice side. I'll do anything to make them think outside their comfort zone.

In other news, the past few days have been rather lovely. It's been sunny (though cold, we had our first frost), and I've generally been enjoying life around these parts. No reason, really. I'm just a happy camper. Maybe it's because I get to see my family next Saturday! Or because I get to see Dana shortly? Or maybe it's just time things started looking up around here... Who knows. I miss you all though!

UPDATE: Taught the class this morning, and it went very well! The questionnaire beforehand helped a lot, so now they've all thought it through and will be ready to discuss next week. I went around and chatted with individual groups (less pressure, not in front of the class), and everyone talked to me at least once. Also, the discussion won't be dominated by the good English speakers because everyone has prepared their thoughts ahead of time, which is helpful. They struggled a lot with the issue of "personhood", but I expected that. I asked them at the end what they thought, and they were much more enthusiastic. One girl (a disengaged student last week) said she liked this better because it hits closer to home. She said, in French, "I like this subject because it could actually happen to me." She's more right than she knows. A girl who used to be in their class last year (and for some reason isn't this year) actually did have an abortion and is currently going through some serious mental issues related to it. MF gave me the heads up even though the girl wouldn't be in the class (because she probably has friends in the class). I started off by saying that we need to be respectful and sensitive because this is a hard subject (and so far, they all were). All opinions are welcome, so long as you can tell me why you hold them! Anyway, I snuck a peak at their questionnaires and most are pro-choice, though after reading through enough of their responses I discovered that most didn't have any good reason to be pro-choice (that's where I come in). I'm going to fight the pro-life battle (for the sake of balance), and get them to support their opinion with reasons. Should be fun! I'll keep you posted. (You can't imagine how much fun it was for me to see them actually engaged in this stuff. It brings a warm fuzzy feeling...)