What motivates us to do good?

  • January 18, 2010 12:04 pm

I have been addicted to the Haiti earthquake relief efforts. I spent much of the weekend reading news updates, blog updates, facebook group statuses, and listening to radio shows about how the world is reacting to the devastation in Haiti.

Countries, organizations, and individuals around the world are reaching out, to help in any way. A question that comes to mind for me is…

What motivates us to do good in the face of tragedy?

Some of the documents that triggered this question for me were the following:

A family’s wait for news from Haiti – I heard about this story in an interview on CBC this morning. I asked myself what motivated the journalist to help? Does it matter?

Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie Donate $1 Million to Doctors Without Borders – Angelina Jolie said, “”It is incredibly horrible to see a catastrophe of this size hit a people who have been suffering from extreme poverty, violence and unrest for so many decades,” If that is the case, why did it have to take an earthquake to inspire the donation?

B.C. students in Haiti arrive in Canada - Are Canadians helping Canadians in Haiti first? Is that why the Canadian government is sending help?

Wyclef Jean and Yele Haiti – The website of Wyclef Jean’s Haiti Relief organization.

Here is a video of Wyclef Jean defending himself and his organization. I found it via this page at npr. The original video is from youtube but because we can’t access youtube from school I’ve uploaded a copy here:

Wyclef Jean Is ‘Disgusted’ By Questions About His Yele Haiti Charity

Here are some other resources:

Disaster in Haiti – CBC full coverage

Haiti Earthquake 2010 – New York Times coverage

Satellite images help focus Haiti earthquake relief

Haiti Earthquake – Day 5:  Reporting with a camera

What do you think?

Start alone – Write a quick comment to this blog with your gut reaction to the question, What motivates us to do good in the face of tragedy?

Branch out - Explore the question in your research groups.  Start with these documents and then find your own. Your group will need to:

Document your resources – this means include links to any and all articles/images/video/audio etc… that you use in your research.

Your group needs to come up with a new question that springs from the research you do about this question.  Sound complicated? Don’t worry you’ll figure it out :)

Present your research and your new question in an innovative way. Some ideas are:

webpage – shortText is easy to use though less flexible than something like a wiki, which is easier for all group members to access.  PBWorks is free for educational use and super easy to get started.

Video – you can decide how to present your ideas via video. If you choose this option you must include your resource list separately.

If you have another idea, clear it with me but please note that I will not allow PowerPoint for these research projects. Time to think outside the PowerPoint box!

Personal News Story Projects

  • September 30, 2009 3:44 pm

You’ve all chosen a story from Monday’s Gazette to focus on. Each of your stories is about a specific topic or event – like people getting sick from Asbestos in Quebec, the first luxury hybrid car, police arrests in Kingston, Montreal public transit, Roman Polanski’s arrest, and the 1st all-green company.

You’ve all also begun to do some more research on your stories. Now it is time to focus your research even more.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it (actually, you don’t have much of a choice ;) ), is to find out where your story fits in terms of world issues.

For example, if I read the story Teen Pleads Guilty in Montreal North Purse Snatching I would need to figure out where this fit on a world scale. I might do a search for children/teens who commit murder and find other stories about this happening in other places in the world. Or I might do research about the idea of ‘taxing’ in different countries.

Basically, your story is a jumping off point to explore world issues that are happening right now.

You are to create a multimedia presentation (ex: voicethread, video) to present your findings.

It is due on October 16th
Due two classes after the 16th. Check your schedules!

Interdependence

  • September 22, 2009 5:50 am

Our Contemporary World Issues class has been talking about the concept of interdependence for the past week or so. We’ve done some individual exploration on David Suzuki’s website, we’ve had some classroom and small group conversations on the subject as well.

I’ve taken some of our words and phrases and put them together in the presentation below. When you read them, think about them – what do they really mean?

I’ve also added someone else’s words on the topic. Do they add to your ideas? Do they make things clearer/more complicated?

Though this post is directed towards my Grade 11 Contemporary World Issues class, I hope that others will comment as well.