- Thread starter
- #201
Donald Johnson
Airman
- 71
- Apr 16, 2021
I could not agree with you more, here. Students are now routinely being told what to think which is why my methodology veers more to Discovery Approach in that I, as the teacher, should present controversial material, not tell them what conclusions to draw. I should be facilitating their learning, not steering them toward a desired outcome through censure.Students need to have a wealth of information that spans the spectrum of the issue in order to use critical thinking to draw a conclusion.
Telling them what to think does no good.
The debate over collateral casualties is controversial, but the deliberate targeting of civilian targets is less so. Slaughterhouse Five crystallizes this point with the bombing of Dresden and Catch-22 does a great job of ridiculing military thought. Bringing together such readings with factual historical accounts does more to develop such discussions than any current textbook (Jared Diamond's "Guns Germs, and Steel" comes close). As a journalism major, I insist that objectivity should be the goal of history teachers, allowing the students to reach their own conclusions, but challenging those on either side that lack logic and factual merit.
I'm not here to assert that I'm "right" about any point about Mosquitos, just to see how you, the well-versed refute them. Thank you for doing so.