session10 w/Dr. Clayton Dube

[Anonymous]

The Chinese political structure that Dr. Dube presented in his last lecture seems highly organized and structured. Although the Chinese political system seems to have more political corruption than that of the United States or at least it seems more acceptable there, the way the decisions are made in China seems to be less fragmented and have less upheaval than decisions made in the U.S. I had a lesson plan idea for when I teach Government/Economics next year. During the year we study different economic systems, comparing and contrasting them, but why not have my students compare how a political decision is made in China versus the United States? Start with a problem that would exist in both countries and trace how a law would be made in both political systems. Students would make a flowchart for each political system and trace the law as it passes through the system. As a culminating assignment I would have the students discuss, which system is more effective and better in making decisions for the people. An essay comparing the two systems would be used for assessment purposes.

[Anonymous]

The lesson you describe would be great!Another addition or adaptation would be to have a debate with the philosophes (Locke, Voltaire, Hobbes, Montesqieu) and have each "philosophe" debate their stance on how the law was passed, their viewpoint on how much government should be involved or what the role of the government vs the people's role in making the law is. This would incorporate CA World History Standard 10.1 as well as 10.9 and 10.10. You could run the debate similar to how we ran the debates at the beginning of the seminar, with developing essential questions to answer.

[Anonymous]

[font=Arial]I did not realize how closely dependent the political structure of a society was hinged upon the state of the economy in that society, and vice versa. I have discussed communism with my students, but have always focused on communism in Russia after reading Animal Farm, but have avoided other parts of the world, such as China. Upon further reading, the structures were similar, but different in their initial intent. One structure was highly ideological, and the other was purely for economic reasons.
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“Russia’s transition from a centrally planned command economy to an open market was called ‘shock therapy’…Politically motivated, it was intended to dispossess the party and the old bureaucracy. There were very few stable institutions in the crumbling Soviet Union. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) did not tolerate organisations it could not totally control, and it established no legal or political structures beyond its control. So when the system collapsed, the few existing structures, like the KGB, the CPSU and its numerous sub-organisations, were severely discredited and on the point of collapse. China, on the other hand, introduced no economic measures for ideological reasons. When the Chinese government made its first steps towards economic liberalisation in 1978, it did so only in order to improve the economy. By keeping the dinosaur enterprises of the command economy going rather than privatising them, the state avoided having to hand these huge ventures over to gamblers. They kept control over production, even if the quality was low.”

http://www.opendemocracy.net
edited by efowler on 5/1/2012
edited by efowler on 5/1/2012

[Anonymous]

This sounds a lot like the IB (International Baccalaureate) program at CHS. Students are asked to look at various world problems from a number of different perspectives. I cannot think of a better way to promote higher level thinking.

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

Dear all,

Please share your thoughts about this session here.

Xin

[Anonymous]

I thought the watermelon analogy was interesting and I can see why Asian countries would want to remained closed to western powers. The watermelon made me think of Africa and how the European powers carved it up and split it up among themselves. I imagine similar analogies can be drawn for South Americans and others.

[Author]

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