By watching this short and heartbreaking video showing high school students in Ukraine preparing for a bombardment (bit.ly/3HHPNB6), I thought of Michael Shermer, the eminent skeptic. Indeed, this one recently told how, student in California in the 1960s, Friday was for him and the other children the day when one prepared for the explosion of an atomic bomb… by taking refuge under the desks. This offered, no doubt, great protection. The cold war inevitably entered the school. Like the very hot one that takes place in Ukraine.
The recent and terrifying IPCC report is also knocking on the door of classrooms right now — of course to varying degrees depending on the age of the students and many other factors. The question of how to talk about these topics inevitably arises.
Here again, everything will depend on the age of the students and we will take into consideration, among other things, the concern not to rush them or stress them unnecessarily as well as the desire to give understandable answers, which depends on what the recipients know. . Imagine that a rather young pupil asks you: “Is this the end of the world?” »
A useful document (in English…) can help you think about this often complex and difficult subject (bit.ly/3txGej4).
But here are some things you can do in class about these terrifying topics. I let you decide at what level and at what age what I propose would be relevant.
News and curriculum
Politics. The threat of recourse to nuclear power by the enemy seemed, not long ago, like a way of avoiding an atomic war: it was said to oneself that resorting to it first would cause the enemy to respond in the same way and would therefore lead to the certainty of the destruction of the parties in question. It was called mutually assured destruction. Or MAD. It was.
Especially since there are in all this, as in human affairs in general, unforeseeable factors which can play and trigger unwanted and eminently formidable effects – in this case a nuclear war. It has also sometimes been narrowly avoided.
This danger awaits us once again in Ukraine. Shermer rightly recalls this factor of uncertainty and what it implies (bit.ly/3IIitet) and encourages fear of the worst.
We read it, then we talk about it in class.
Critical thinking and new media. The ongoing war is particularly conducive to the spread of fake news. See this magazine cover Time which associates Putin with Hitler (bit.ly/3IKLN4g).
Is this a real cover? A false ? Have fun looking for the answer. Then, we will review, in class, ways to navigate more safely.
Here are already three simple and very useful tips: we do not click too quickly on the links that Google offers us and we look at them on two or three pages before doing so; we open a link about the link we are going to consult before going there; and we’ll see what they say about the subject on the Wikipedia talk pages.
These strategies and the others that will be studied are more indispensable than ever in times of war.
Science. Science classes are the perfect place to talk about the latest IPCC report and the terrible effects of misinformation on public debate on this very serious subject.
One important thing to know about in the fight against scientific misinformation is this useful taxonomy called FLICC (associated, in English, with “ fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry picking, conspiracy theories ”) that everyone should have taken the time to review (bit.ly/3tsg9C1).
We’ll do it together next class.
Philosophy. We sometimes talked in class about Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), this immense logician and philosopher. The fight against nuclear energy occupied an important part of his militancy during the last years of his life.
In 1955, he and Albert Einstein published a famous manifesto against nuclear power. (An extract in French is offered here: bit.ly/3IJrxQB.)
It ends with these words: “It depends on us to progress unceasingly on the path of happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Are we, on the contrary, going to choose death because we are unable to forget our quarrels? The call we make is that of human beings to other human beings: remember that you are of the race of men and forget the rest. If you succeed, a new paradise is opened to you; otherwise, you risk universal annihilation. »
What do you think ?
Literature. The theme of war in Jacques Prévert (1900-1977) could make you think and smile at the same time, which will no doubt be welcome.
“What bullshit the war”, is a word of his well known, as much as his: “At that time it was peace that is to say the war elsewhere. »
But we can have fun, I mean yellow laughter, with the following passage, said by Poincaré in the play The Battle of Fontenoy “To war as to war!” / One soldier lost, ten found!! / It takes civilians to make soldiers!!! / With a living civilian, we make a dead soldier!!!! / And for the dead soldiers, we make monuments!!!!! / Monuments to the dead !!!!!! »
We would like to see the new Culture and Citizenship of Quebec course already implemented.
This would be the perfect place to talk about all this…