We are September 4, 1999, in Alma, in a class of 5and secondary.
— Welcome to this citizenship education course, given for the very first time this year. You will learn, I hope, everything you need to know and be to fully and lucidly exercise your role as a potential ruler who… Yes, Pierre?
– Madam, could you be more clear? We understand nothing…
(Laughs in the class)
– OKAY. Let’s take an example. Imagine that in a few years a new virus hits the whole world. Hospitals, in Quebec as elsewhere, are overflowing. Schools are closed, difficult decisions must constantly be made by the authorities. A vaccine exists, but some refuse to receive it, which contributes to increase the dangers… Yes, Pierre?
– Madame, it can not be, a virus that does all that!
— (Stephanie, from the back of the class) Yes, Pierre. Remember last year’s biology class. The funny teacher who explained what viruses are and who said that the little buggers could well have the upper hand over the big ones.
(Laughs in the class)
— The little bug is there and has the effects on the big ones that I have begun to describe. The authorities react, sometimes difficult decisions are taken. Citizens in there? They must place their trust or not in the authorities who make these decisions. This asks two things of them. First, that they decide whether or not these authorities have the necessary skills to make these decisions; then, that they are convinced that they do not want to deceive them, to harm them. For the first condition, we must have knowledge that allows us to judge – in this case, among others, scientific knowledge. The school, we hope, will pass them on to you. For the second condition, you need a lucid practice of the exercise of citizenship and for that to have developed virtues… Yes, Pierre?
“What does that mean, virtues?”
– Good question. The virtues are, if you will, habits which have developed in us through practice and which we exercise spontaneously when necessary. There are lots of them that are essential to the citizen. We will talk about them in this course and we will try to practice them. Now imagine that the virus spreads to the point where we have to decide who to keep and who to treat in hospitals, which are overcrowded in part because there are too many unvaccinated people. Some propose to ban them from certain places, where they could contaminate people. Others want to impose a tax on them if they show up at the hospital. Still others make the vaccine mandatory. Stephanie?
— My mother is a lawyer and she would tell you that we absolutely cannot deprive people of their rights and freedoms guaranteed by the charters.
“Your mother probably wouldn’t say that, and she would make important nuances that we’ll talk about in this lesson. She would certainly say that we must clearly define what freedoms and rights are. With reason. We will see, for example, that we cannot invoke rights as if that would immediately resolve a complex question. Rights are often limited by other rights we have or others have. Your right to consume alcohol at 18 limits your right to drive a car; the customer’s right to refuse to eat in a restaurant where there might be hair in his soup limits the right of cooks to refuse to wear a net over their head if they want to work there. Similarly, it is necessary to specify what is meant by freedom and what may limit it, for example duties, and take into account the circumstances… Yes, Caroline?
— It becomes complex and we can predict that the decisions taken will not be unanimous…
– Indeed. There will inevitably be disagreements, sometimes significant ones. It might even be surprising. Imagine, say, that left-wing linguist, Chomsky, whom your English teacher, Mr. Lennon, often had you read to, saying that while people have a right to refuse the vaccine, they have a duty to self-isolate from the community.
— (Pierre) That can’t be, madam!
– Who knows ? But you still have to live with people and decisions you disagree with. It will be necessary to name all this and, to do this, to have informed oneself from reliable sources and not by fluttering from left to right and speaking only to people who think like us. It will be necessary to have learned to discuss, without insulting, complex and sensitive subjects. Don’t settle for emotional responses. Yes, Peter?
“Your famous virtues!”
– Exact. Among them, sometimes, that of challenging decisions through civil disobedience. There is also a segment of the course on this… But we will also learn what these institutions in which we live are, how they are created, by whom, what they do, how they make their decisions, what threatens them… Michel?
– In the end, if we sum up, we will learn this year to … wait until I reread myself: fully and lucidly exercise our role as a potential ruler. (Laughs)
– Here ! And we can hope that if tomorrow such a virus appeared, citizens would be better prepared to face it together.
Tips and tricks
Over the next few weeks, I’ll occasionally offer you some (rather) well-researched-sanctioned teaching tips, tricks, and strategies.
This time I suggest you read the ten Principles of Instruction of a well-known researcher, Barak Rosenshine (1930-2017). To my knowledge, this rich text, which summarizes a life of work, is unfortunately not translated into French.