QUESTION: Forms of Government

[Deidre Dunbar]

 

Hello,

I am looking for an interesting and interactive way to introduce various forms of government.  I want to look at dictatorships, direct democracies, and republics.  I have a few ideas, but would like to see if there are other great ideas out there!

[Ryan Goble]

Hi Deidre, can you edit your post above to tell us what age group you're working with and what you're interested, more speciically, in teaching about?  Do to the edit go to Options > Edit Discussion

[Ryan Goble]

Have you done a YouTube search yet and privewed the videos there?  Here is a search related to your topic -http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=democracy%2C+socialism%...

 

I thikn is might be interesting to look at some of the claims made in the news about the US being socialist and folks exploring those. Inquiry based questions like "Is OBAMA a socialist?" could be really interesting disucssion fodder. Other ?s - • Is it cheaper to live in Sweden or the US?

• How many true dictatorships exist in the world today? - How do you know they are dictatorships?

 

Also having students take a political compass litmus test and maybe mapping some countries based on student questions and research a la this graph?

 

[Ryan Goble]

I cross-posted this question over at the NCSS Ning (http://ncssnetwork.ning.com) -

This dude wrote back:

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Reply by Richard Strean 5 hours ago

Well it depends on the clientele, of course, but I've had an idea that I have not had the time and guts to do but have wanted to try for quite a while.  Of course the key point in teaching the political spectrum varies depending on whether you're teaching history or government or civics or whatever.  Other than exposing students to the basic ideas of liberalism and conservatism and so on, I think one fundamental idea to convey is that just as the spectrum of colors is organized by the principle of wavelength, the political spectrum has an organizing principle, too.  There's a reason the left is on the left and the right is on the right, just as there's a reason for ROY G BIV.  Once you lay out the classic political spectrum and explain it in terms of an orientation to change or the little guy or whatever you think it is, I would ask students if it still applies.  If you have -- or can develop -- politically savvy students who realize that plenty of self-identified US conservatives are not at all conservative, and that there are environmentalists all over the spectrum, I'd ask students to devise a better spectrum.  Some might just bend the ends toward each other because fascists and communists can look alike in their methods.  Good for them.  Maybe someone will come up with a better way to organize these ideas because the traditional spectrum is obviously no longer fully applicable and I have been frustrated for quite a while in teaching it the way I learned it.  If your colleague gets a student to improve it, please post the new one.  :-)