Social Justice!

<p>This past year, I have been taking an elective at my school related to social justice. If anyone is interested in social justice and related issues, drop me a PM.</p>

<p>I LOVE SOCIAL jUSTICE PUSHED ME TO BE A PSYCHOLOGIST, what books did you read for class?</p>

<p>zetsui: Check your private messages.</p>

<p>I wish you would publicly post about the class. It sounds very interesting.</p>

<p>One clarification: I have been taking this class only since January 2005.</p>

<p>That being said, I'd like to discuss some of the issues we brought up in our class. We have covered topics such as the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, where rebel groups have displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Murder and rape are commonplace in this region. We also discussed the crisis in Congo, where roughly 20 peacekeeping soliders were killed last week. Rebel groups are fighting the government in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and are disrupting upcoming elections. We also went on to discuss the life of Burma, where the government has oppressed the people. In the face of this, Aung Sung Suu Kyi (whose father established Burma) has nonviolently resisted the government. For a number of reasons, this has actually aided the current government - which is why they are keeping her alive. Lastly, we discussed the conflict in Israel/Palestine, and watched a video which depicted the struggles of the Palestinian people (and how these conditions have produced so many suicide bombers).</p>

<p>Most of the material covered in this class is not new to me, as I learned about these conflicts through debating on my school's Forensics Program. This year's debate topic deals with UN peacekeeping operations.</p>

<p>Thanks for describing the class. What kind of assignments do you have? Any papers? What's the structure of the debate? How do you cover the material -- by reading newspaper and news magazine articles or through other means?</p>

<p>Our assignments are to read articles (magazines and newspapers) and occasionally to watch a movie during our spare time. We answer a set of questions based on the reading weekly.</p>

<p>Material in class is covered mainly through reading articles and watching videos.</p>

<p>The form of debate I was referring to is Policy Debate, where two teams composed of 2 members debate each other. Each team can either be Affirmative or Negative, meaning that they can either affirm or oppose (negate) this year's resolution (that the US Federal Gov't should substantially increase support for UN peacekeeping in various nations). The AFF team gets to speak first, then the NEG team, then AFF, and so on. Each member of each team gets to speak twice (during a constructive, where they outline points on why their position is better and during a rebuttal, where they rebutt any arguments made against their team).</p>

<p>Bump back to the top.</p>

<p>My school has something similar - we have the option of taking Comparative Governments 20 (1st semester) or International Politics 30 (2nd semester). I've taken CG20 and am currently in IP30. There are about 35 people in each class and they are held after school one day a week. We talk about similar issues as well, although we relate them a lot more to power and politics and how the world works today. We have assignments every week, which are mostly questions along with some critiques of statements made by international leaders (one was on the Bush inauguration address, for example). We also have a major project having to do with our field experience, which is the best part. The mandatory field experience is our local MUN competition. For the optional field experiences, we attended SSUNS in Montreal last November (a MUN program run by McGill), and during spring break we will be attending the HMCE in Paris (Model Congress Europe). </p>

<p>This is the first year we have this program at our school and it rules!</p>

<p>cowgirlatheart: Check your private messages.</p>