Morality Without God 

I'm not saying it doesn't happen. It does. All the time, in fact. Right now, at the school I'm sitting in, while some amazing students participate in MUN, there are people doing it all around me. They're practicing morality. Just like the poster says on their bulletin board next to their really nice lounge - they're playing nice, working hard, and staying kind. 

But why?

Why do these things? 

I can remember before I became a parent I vowed never to say to one of my children, "Because I said so!" Of course, reality came with a lot more dirty diapers, dishes, and exhaustion than anticipated so, I've since broken that vow (more than once). But I still like the reason for my initial resolve. That's why I usually take the time, eventually, to explain carefully the "why" behind anything I ask my kids to do. 

I think the kids at this school deserve the same respect, wouldn't you agree? If you think their poster is correct - play nice, work hard, stay kind - I'm sure you do.

Well then, I wonder what reason they usually give around here for obeying these three important moral mandates? After all, we can't expect students to obey them simply because we said so. That's totally unreasonable. If one of their friends hands them a bag saying, "Here, try this." We would expect the student to at least ask, "Ah, why?"  And hopefully, whatever great reason Mr. drug pusher friend comes up with, our inquisitor will say something like, "Ya, not a good enough reason. Go flush that crap." We expect students to ask "Why" and then assess the reason for integrity, consistency, and sense.  

Now, you may say, "Well, taking illicit drugs is not intuitively right. Being kind is." Here's where I challenge you to really think hard. Is being kind, working hard, and playing nice, really intuitively right? I submit to you that only if there is an Objective Dictate Giver (ODG) :) (I know, you see it. Lit, huh?) can it be said that these moral mandates are in any way intuitive. In fact, without an ODG (okay, okay let's move the letters around a bit), or a GOD, whose very being or essence is the cause of the "rightness" of these mandates, there would actually be intuitive reasons NOT to follow these mandates. Playing nice does not get me ahead in this world. Working hard is the last thing I want to do if I can cheat my way to results without much strain. And staying kind work's only as long as it works for me. As soon as it doesn't, I'm not kind. 

Here I am at a school, where, like many, many schools, they want nothing to do with an ODG. Oh, sorry, did it again. I mean, a GOD. So, what reason do they give to their students for following the advice of these mounted moral mandates that are hanging all around me? I really wonder. I do. 

Like many of the students here, there are plenty of people practicing morality without God. But why? Because someone said so? Because it's simply the right thing to do? Because this is obviously how humanity thrives? Nope. Sorry. These answers are far from satisfying. In fact, they fall hopelessly short. 

At Logos, we believe that you should play nice, work hard, and stay kind too. But our reason is not that these are the obvious, most intuitive things to do. And our reason is certainly not because we say so. No, we believe that there is a GOD whose very goodness defining image we were created in. An image we are created to shine. An image that, when honed, polished, and glistening we find ourselves living out an abundant life. Our God is the Creator being from whom we derive concepts like "nice" or "kind" or "honest" and whose divine nature and commands to be fruitful and make known His glory, are the reasons we work hard and strive honestly. No other reason makes more sense. No other reason sets such a solid foundation for morality.  

Honestly. Without a GOD, moral mandates are arbitrary. They're void of any potency needed to stir the soul to obedience. In fact, without God, moral mandates are so lame, you may as well just hang em on posters all around a school and hope that people will obey "because I said so." 

A little philosophy goes a long way. Someone should tell Nike. I don't expect a shoe company to have a philosopher on their payroll. I bet you don't either but I sure expect a few high paid executives to see a little ways down the pike. I mean really? You didn't see this one coming, Nike? 

The obvious (or maybe not so obvious) problem with this statement is that it takes the relativistic assumption that all views, thus causes, are created equal. I mean really, "believe in something" is synonymous with "believe in anything" if you don't specify what that "something" is. And I think this just is the point  Nike is trying to make. I THINK they are essentially saying, "We don't really care all that much what your cause is, just believe it at all costs, like cool Kaepernick did." That may sound kind of exciting at first. I'm a guy. I like rugged, Navy SEAL type sacrifice. And hey, throw in a little NFL and ya, I dig it (that's an old 70's saying for "It's lit!"). But as you can see from the meme I generated, there's a real problem with this slogan. If you don't see it yet (because you're multitasking while reading this), I'll spell it out for you. This saying can apply (quite well I might add) to ANY cause, including extreme, radical Islamic terrorism. In fact, given Osama Bin Laden's current status, I'd say this slogan applies better to him than to Colin Kaepernick. Now, I'm not saying that Nike is going to be the first to come out with a line of shoes called the BIG Terrors. No, I'm sure they do not want this slogan to be applied to anything like terrorism. The problem, though, it just does apply to terrorism (and anything else) if you insist on a relativistic perspective on worldviews and their subsequent causes. 

So what would Nike say in response? I hope they would agree not all causes are created equal. I hope (and assume they would) say, "We in no way support the use of this slogan to promote any cause that would be harmful, degrading, or deleterious to the thriving of humanity." (Professional sounding, ya?). I'm sure they would (and maybe will need to) say something to this effect. This, stance against the tyranny of terror, though, betrays a belief in objective reality. In other words, a belief that some views (and their causes) are wrong - truly wrong. Well, if Nike believes that their new slogan should not and MUST  not be applied to something like terrorism, what's their reasoning? After all, if truth is relative, then their new slogan can easily apply to terrorism. 

The problem, however, is much deeper than it may first appear. Here's why. If truth is objective, then there are many more beliefs that are in presuppositional conflict than just the belief that terrorism is evil vs. terrorism is not evil. What I mean is, if truth is objective then there are many beliefs that totally conflict at a foundational level. So, while Nike may want to say something like, "Okay, you got us. We see that there really is some real evil out there and we do not want our new slogan applied to any of that obvious evil. However, aside from the obvious evil, we want people to apply the slogan to any other belief that suits there lifestyle." they can't actually say this and remain reasonable. Why not? Because there just are major conflicts between views/causes which means it's impossible for them both to be right, not in an objective reality anyway (and trust me, you don't want to live in a subjective reality). So, would Nike suggest you "sacrifice everything" for a wrong belief? (Well, probably ya. Actually, the only real sacrifice Nike probably cares about is your allowance on their newest shoes). Or would they stand by the false and meaning-less assumption that all beliefs are right as long as they don't cause overt harm to the human race? 

Being willing to sacrifice everything for a cause is great if that cause is worth sacrificing for. The only way you know if a cause is worth sacrificing for, though, is to know that it is the truth. And the only way you really know it's the truth is if you (my seniors are going to love this) analyze the belief's basic presuppositions to determine if they are meaningful thus building on a solid foundation of reason. 

If Nike had a good philosopher on staff, I think she (and it would be a she cuz women are just so much smarter) would have suggested a slogan more like this: Determine Truth. Then believe it. Even if it means sacrificing everything. Wow, this sounds like something right out of the Bible. You know, come to think of it, if Nike is keen on sacrifice stories and causes, I got a great one for em. Think they'll put His face on a poster? 

English literature has gone from being considered primarily British literature to being any literature that is written in English. This allows for a multicultural canon within the family of what’s considered English literature.

English is spoken by over 1.5 billion people worldwide. The English language is everywhere, literally. As a teacher in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, I see the desire for the local population to lean our global language. They want to be able to read, speak, and listen to English so they can engage with the world and access a much broader pool of tertiary education opportunities and subsequent career options. Although many schools, including my own school of employment, accommodate these local students, we also see the danger in glorifying the western culture and allowing our ethnocentricity to create a students body who believe the West is better than the East, especially the developing South East Asian countries. An introduction to regional literature, either originally written in English or translated into the English language, helps promote a more balanced student perspective on global issues and ideals.

A school-wide (or class-wide) balanced perspective may not always be easy to gauge or assess but a developing cultural competence will likely be seen through many “windows” of observation - a comment made, a friendship fostered, a journal entry, a debate, a casual conversation, a video production, or a prevailing mood of cultural tolerance and acceptance.

English language arts curriculum has access to literature from all over the world. There likely is not a culture in existence that a student could not be given access to through literature. Here at Logos International School, we use local stories like First They Killed My Father, Angkor Priestly journals, and A Dragon Apparent to ensure students have adequate time to engage with their own culture while studying the English language and preparing for a cross-cultural university education.

Differentiation

Differentiation is for every student in every classroom. No two students are exactly alike. While there are similar levels of readiness, learner profiles, and levels of interest, each student brings into the classroom a nuanced background that requires careful consideration as a teacher prepares the content, process, and product of a lesson (McCarthy, 2014).

There are, however, some learners who require considerably more differentiation than others and these are the learners who will receive the greatest benefit from a teacher’s efforts to differentiate instruction at the needed levels. It is important to keep in mind that these students may come from all walks of life and may have varied academic backgrounds. Students who need the most differentiation in one subject may require little alteration in another subject. Jesse is a case in point. A bright, relatively engaged student, Jesse excels in math, science, drama, and plays after school sports. Obviously, quite well rounded, Jesse is not a troubled student who may have a stereotypical need for learning support and significant instructional differentiation. Regardless of his positive academic and behavioral background, Jesse found himself in need of differentiation in his 12th grade Philosophy class.

The evaluation for Jesse’s need of content and process differentiation came early as a result of daily formative assessments. Formative assessments take the form of online daily wrap-ups, weekly low-stakes 10 question quizzes, and plickers fun quizzes at the beginning of class. In addition, students record confusion and clarity in a philosophy journal. After two quizzes, a few wrap-ups, and an initial review of student journals, it was clear that the content being taught in Jesse’s philosophy class was not being delivered in an accessible way, at least for him. This is not uncommon for a subject like philosophy that often students are not introduced to until university studies. Clearly, a plan for instruction modification was in need.

The plan for differentiated content, process, and product was successful enough that the teacher adopted a few new learning strategies that benefitted many other students. Until this point, content had mostly been delivered through mini-lecture and students outside class reading. While the mini-lectures seemed effective in introducing students to new concepts, the textbook clearly required more scaffolding during class time. The teacher began differentiating content instruction by incorporating a type of readers workshop (Kleine, n.d.) where students who had proven, through formative assessments, to have a solid grasp on the content, were partnered with a circle of students who were struggling, of course, this included Jesse. Each learner is given a second reading of the chapter and the teacher is able to engage with each circle to enhance content acquisition.

Another content differentiation strategy adopted uses screencastify to make a 5 minute video covering the key concepts of each chapter. The screencast video is released to the students the day before the class mini-lecture and can be previewed to help the student prepare for the lesson. Student come with a few questions even before the lesson begins and they are asked to record the answer to their question if their question is answered during the lesson. Students with unanswered questions are then given time to ask at the end of the mini-lecture.

To differentiate for process, Jesse, along with four other students who were identified as requiring differentiated instruction, were asked to meet with the teacher for 10 minutes during Thursday’s lunch period. During this time the teacher models the processing of the content by having a conversation with himself. It may sound something like, “I wonder what it means to think presuppositionally? You know, the word presupposition can be broken down by looking at its prefix and suffix…”  At first the students observed this external processing with reservation but after about 4 meetings, were able to engage in the process themselves.  

The reading workshops proved to be a better way to tackle a difficult textbook for many learners (and the learners who do not need the reading workshops are leading them, thus, acquiring many other skills), and lunch period external processing was goofy but seemingly effective (especially in building teacher and student relationship). This left differentiation in product. A menu of activities proved to be an effective way to allow for many different learners to choose from a variety of activities that suited their learning styles and preferences. Students are able to choose very challenging activities that counted for their weeks work or from a number of activities that will give them access to multiple areas of the learning content.    

References:

McCarthy, J. (2014, July 23). 3 Ways to Plan for Diverse Learners: What Teachers Do. Retrieved December 12, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/differentiated-instruction-ways-to-plan-john-mccarthy

Kleine, R. (n.d.). Rick's Reading Workshop: Overview. Retrieved December 12, 2017, from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/reading-workshop-overview

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The [person] who can make hard things easy is the educator.”

While I endeavor to accomplish this in, during, and throughout each unit, the test of my success as an educator comes from the results of an assessment - do the students now possess the complex skills and knowledge at a level where long term understanding has taken place? Have they learned what I’ve attempted to teach? The idea of an assessment, both formative and summative makes sense; students need to prove knowledge and skill acquisition. The challenge is in developing an engaging assessment that accurately measures student learning.

Below, I will attempt to describe a good formative and summative assessment that is intended to assess understanding for a particular standard and its accompanying learning objectives. But first, let me define these two different types of assessments, if not for any other reason, for my own external processing needs. A formative assessment is an informal, often low-stakes, check for understanding (Alber, 2011). These informal assessments can be quizzes, ticket-outs, quizlet type games, journal entries, or even a conversation with a student after class. The idea is to check for students learning along the way and assess if content comprehension is taking place long before the big high-stakes test or project. The summative assessment, on the other hand, is the high-stakes “end game” that determines whether or not the students have a high, mid-level, or low skills and knowledge comprehension for the whole unit’s content. Although these summative assessments have been traditionally pen and paper tests, they are not bound to that format and many teachers are creating and discovering creative and effective ways to structure summative assessments (Wolpert-Gawron, 2012).

A simple breakdown of the unit will assist in determining the effectiveness of the following assessments.

Big Idea: Authors usually know the rules and use them to inform and move the reader.

Essential Question: How has Mary Shelley used dramatic conventions to define themes and effect    

                                  readers?

Virginia State English Grade 12 Standard: Analyze how dramatic conventions including character, scene, dialogue, and staging contribute to the theme and effect.

Five SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) objectives have been developed to guide instruction and the creation of activities for class learning. The 5th lesson objective is relevant as it includes the preparation for the formative assessment: By the beginning of next class SWBAT justify the thematic contribution of 2 characters in Frankenstein (other than Frankenstein and the monster) by completing the “prepare for pop-up debate” worksheet.

Formative Assessment: a pop-up debate will be used to measure students understanding of author’s use of  minor characters in developing themes. Students will be evaluated using the self-evaluation sheet (see pic below). In addition, students will answer a wrap-up scaling question on a Google Form (see pic below). The pop-up debate allows me to see the students in action and carefully observe debate content to listen for keywords, phrases, and impromptu dialogue that indicates students level of content comprehension, in this specific case, their understanding of how Shelley uses minor characters to define themes in her book Frankenstein.

Summative Assessment: In testing for unit content knowledge, or in this case the skill and content knowledge in each objective, the students will create a Screencastify presentation. Each student will create a script that includes a definition of dramatic conventions, an explanation of how authors use them in general, three specific examples from modern literature (from students recreational reading list; my students read 50% academic and 50% recreational; Kelly Gallagher, Readicide), and three specific examples from Frankenstein. Students will make slides with at least 1 graphic/picture per slide (to enhance understanding) and keywords or phrases that help guide the presentation. Combining script and slides, student will use the free Chrome application Screencastify to record their video. A rubric is distributed that includes details like proper citations, etc. The screencastify video will allow students the final opportunity to prove unit content learning in an engaging and creative manner. The process of writing (script), connecting content to graphic, reading (script), and reviewing multiple times for editing, etc. will enhance the likelihood of long-term memory transfer. In addition, creating a Screencastify offers a “real world” skill and technology proficiency that can be applied to other learning opportunities.

Alber, R. (2011). Why Formative Assessments Matter. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/formative-assessments-importance-of-rebecca-alber

Wolpert-Gawron, H. (2012). How Can We Make Assessments Meaningful? Retrieved December 05, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/making-assessments-meaningful-heather-wolpert-gawron

Since I started my teaching career without an education in teaching, I was prone to all the beginner mistakes that one can imagine. The mistakes were many and included such follies as not setting rules and procedures, believing hour long lectures is “just how teaching’s done”, and even showing a youtube video on Hindu practices without actually viewing the whole video first - yikes! (The last mistake had little to do with not having an education degree and more to do with lacking some good ol’ common sense).  

One of my mistakes included a mistake in perspective or belief. I had the dubious perspective that an education degree was a waste of time when all one really had to do was major in their respective field and then after obtaining all the knowledge needed, you would just saunter into the classroom and of course, teach. Well, it took me about twenty minutes in the classroom before I realized that there is serious method to the madness and since I totally lacked the method, well, total madness was the learning objective we most often accomplished.

Years of experience gleaned from “real” teachers and an annual recurring enrollment in the school of hard knocks has shaped things up quite well for me and my students. While I am grateful for this, I must say that the Teach-Now program is far exceeding my expectations and is serving as the polished finish on this rusty teacher.

There have been multiple activities and insights that have propelled my teaching ability forward exponentially. This lesson, however, has topped them all. Until this lesson, I did not really grasp the importance of standards to shape everything else that goes on in the classroom. What a revelation it is to be able to unpack these standards and watch closely as the big idea emerges from the nouns, the skills to be taught and honed arrive from the verb(s), assessments become more clear and focused, and relevant and pinpoint accurate activities can be developed.  

I look forward to the unpacking of each standard that I select for a unit and I know that through this unpacking process the lessons will be much richer and relevant, teaching more focused, learning more enjoyable, practical, and measurable, and assessment strategies more broad.

I have created my own standard unpacking grid:

“Why do we need to study British Literature in Cambodia?”

This 12 grade student had the same question I asked myself when I was approached about teaching this class at the close of last school year. Of course, I didn’t actually voice this question to the administration the way he voiced it to me on this day. But I did go and get some answers and fortunately, I had the foresight to teach these answers to the students before we began our British literature adventure.

“Great question!” I enthusiastically said. “One reason can be seen in our need to be able to really analyze people and time periods and relate those qualities and influences to the art and literary works of their time period. This just is one of the ways we come to grasp a fuller understanding of our world and the people who shape our cultures. We need to be able to analyze an author, for example, and see the connections between their character and personality and the literary work they produced.” Although I didn’t tell him, I knew that this was the reason I chose this particular standard for this Gothic literature unit where Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is used as our primary text.

Virginia State English 12 Standard | Reading 12.4.d

Relate literary works and authors to major themes and issues of their eras.

Through this unit students will become proficient at:

Identifying themes in literature

Identifying the major issues of the romantic time period

Understanding the concept of author profiling

Connecting common era issues with themes in literature

Connecting author personality with key themes in literature

Students will prove their proficiency through three formative and one summative assessment. Two Plickers quizzes will be presented in the unit as a check for understanding. In addition, a reflection paper on the learning outcome of the “anticipate” activity will serve as a formative check for understanding. As a summative assessment the students will create a storyboard that includes characteristics and personality traits of Mary Shelley, issues of the Romantic era and connect them with the major themes in Frankenstein.   

The first activity to engage and move students towards proficiency will involve anticipating the personality traits of the author, Mary Shelley, by reading a bio of the romantic era and a short bio on Mary Wollstonecraft, Shelley’s mother. The students will speculate on the personality of Mary Shelley by writing a fictitious bio. The students will then read a real bio on Mary Shelley and compare and contrast the real bio with their speculative bio.

The second activity to engage and move students towards proficiency will involve anticipating the major themes of Frankenstein by reading a second bio on Mary Shelley and the romantic era. Students will list speculative themes (at least 5) with an accompanying explanation. Students will keep this speculative theme activity and see how many themes they got correct (or close) as they read through Frankenstein.

The third activity will involve a mix and match game where student groups are given a many themes to multiple British literature text of the romantic era. The students will read excerpts from each novel and choose which theme belongs to which novel. They will need to give a reason for that particular theme connecting with a particular novel. The game will end with answers revealed and explained.