Hi Jan,jan wrote:Hello Marcus, Kay said that her students were 6th and 7th graders and while your suggestions may be fine for a college classroom, I find that to suggest that they read any of the classics to determine what greatness means or whether Alexander deserved to be called great a bit too much for that age student. There is a vast difference in discussing Alexander's history with college students versus 6th grade students. I did not respond entirely to this post simply because I am well aware of the many different books that are made available to children in the juvenile section of the library, and I am sure that Kay may be as well. My point of suggestion was to insure that the students are who do the work in finding any attributes that can be considered "great" rather than have the teacher or an author do it for them. I have no quarrel with discussing the issue of "great" as either the Greeks or the Romans considered it to be or as we in America or any other nation consider it to be. It has become a word that is a cliche.
Like I said, I don't know how teaching is done in the US, but to start with the premise that Alexander was "great" and simply to ask students to find evidence to support that statement would be considered a very poor way of teaching History here.
Anyway, I am not entirely clear what you are proposing here, now. I didn't advocate giving the students a list of attributes that can be considered "great" - they can do that themselves. They would need more information given to them about what the ancients considered to be "great", however.
As for the source evidence - no, the students cannot be expected to read all the sources in order to find their evidence, but that isn't what I said, either.
Anyway, it's a bit of a pointless argument. I know how I would teach it, and it would be considered very poor pedagogy to say "Hey kids, Alexander was great, so go find me some evidence to support this."
Actually, although I know what you are saying in terms of the secularisation of the modern world, in my experience I tend to find that this is exactly the sort of thing that my students find fascinating. But I would not want to generalise about all 11-12 year olds.jan wrote:But for sixth and seventh grade students, I don't think that there would be much interest in his godlike state of being. This century has developed an attitude towards gods and goddesses that is totally different from that of Alexander's time.
Two things here, one of which touches on what I have been trying (obviously unsuccessfully) to say already. First, most young students know how to use the internet, indeed; it is also a very sad fact that most young students - including much older ones than we are talking about here - do not yet know how to sift through the junk and find good information on the internet. To send students off simply to find information on the internet teaches them nothing. The whole point of teaching History is to give them skills, and at 11-12 years old they need to be reading sources, not the Internet.jan wrote:Most young students know how to use the internet very well, and there is no doubt that the internet is loaded with information about Alexander. My point is that the student learns best who finds those materials for himself.
Secondly, this all depends on what the student is trying to learn. What you are talking about here is all very well for 7-9 year olds: "go and find me three facts about Alexander the Great". At 11-12 they are beyond that type of task which is, to be honest, rather pointless. They need to be learning to construct arguments by looking at both sides, making judgements, and expressing that judgement with clear and thought-out reference to source evidence.
That's what I do with the 11-12 year olds that I teach, and they are perfectly capable of it.
Indeed. And sending students off to look at the internet will provide an awful lot of bad evidence. And what you advocated had no element of debate in it - you just said that they should find the evidence to support a statement.jan wrote:I do not know how debate and argument is taught in England, but in America, we use Robert's Rule of Order and we also learn that for any argument, one must have evidence to support the argument. If one argues that Alexander is great, then one must have evidence to support that argument. However, as the saying goes even on Pothos. I will not do your homework for you.
ATB
