The first lecture that I attended this semester was actually way back on September 30th. Now, I know what you are thinking... that was a long time ago.
Okay, while you caught me there... I will assure you that I did take notes on the lecture and as I mentioned in my earlier post about me being a college student, my since of timing is a bit skewed.
But let's get down to business.
Michael Sandel, professor of government at Harvard University gave Luther College's Farwell Distinguished Lecture in the CFL.
While I walked in right on time, I was amazed at how many people were actually at this lecture. I even had to sit up top in the upper balcony because there were no empty seats on the floor to be found.
"Why are there so many people here?" I thought. I mean I will be honest and say I was there solely through mouth of word of students on campus because I keep hearing that this guy was legit. I mean I heard that his classes at Harvard are extremely hard to get into and are even booked up for years. Now, the more I think about it, I don't how that is possible but whatever. This guy knew how to generate an audience.
Which brings me to my first golden star of critiquing this speech... Michael Sandel without even lifting a finger or opening his mouth had a great crowd, which is always a bonus! I mean as a future teacher, I hope to someday have this status. Not that I want to be a popular teacher but can you imagine the type of learning you could get out of students who actually want to be there? I mean, getting students to want to go to class and who want to learn is half the battle.
As I sat there in much anticipation... I began to leaf through the booklet that I got when i walked through the door. I learned that Sandel's presentation was titled "The Lost Art of Democratic Argument: Can We Reason Together about Values without Rancor and Incivility. The title was very intriguing to me. In terms of education, it was interesting to connect the two. There are a lot of moral dilemmas when it comes to education and in Sandel's basics of his speech has to do with challenging students with different moral dilemmas to help them see how they are and why they choose the things they choose.
What I found remarkable was that every time Sandel asked the audience to voice there opinion as to why they would choose to do this over this... was that the important moral questions are never black and white.
Just like in education. NOTHING IS EVER BLACK AND WHITE.. well, expect for the text that we read in class but besides that... there is always a but, and, or, if! For example, when it comes to accessing if a child is "at risk" or not, it's never a usually a straight answer. There are always a lot of components to go over and a lot of over things to access.
Throughout Sandel's speech, he always incorporated the audience, which leads to my second gold star of the critiquing. I found it very beneficial to the speech to ask the audience and hear what they would do. For example, Sandel asked the audience if he you were driving a train that was going to crash and you could go straight and kill five people or curve to the right and only kill yourself what would you do? Instead of Sandel just simply going though each different scenario and stating the different moral dilemmas, he went straight for the participation. There were people in the audience with microphones so you were able to hear everyone clearly and could just listen.
This was another effective component of Sandel's speech that can be linked to education; PARTICIPATION! Participation is huge in education. It is important to get your students involved in class. By allowing students to participate and letting them voice their opinion, it gives them a voice in their education, which is HUGE! This is one reason why I enjoy Education Psychology as a class because I can voice my opinion freely and so can my classmates. There is something very therapeutic about it, I think.
As you can see, this lecture was a great one to go to. There were a lot of elements in it that can be linked to education. Through Sandel's lecture, I was able to see his experience shine through. He has been a member of the Harvard faculty since 1980 and has taught courses titled "Ethics, Biotechnology, and the Future of Human Nature," "Markets, Morals and Law," and "Globalization and Its Critics." So he is very skilled at what he does for living. I hope one day I can be as skilled as him and teacher students who want to learn.
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