[A-List] A Classroom Exercise

[Omahkohkiaayo_ipoyi <omahkohkiaayo@xxxxxxxxx>]

In my classes (Intro, Economic Geography, Intermediate Micro and
Intermediate Macro) on the first day of the course I ask my students if
they know anything about the author or the text they are about to use. They
all say no. I then ask how, with this text or any book or other medium,
they can get a sense of what the author/performer is really about and their
"rhetorical intention" without getting into the main body of the content. I
note that what I am really asking is how can people be manipulated without
often knowing that that is what is going on. Often they will say the
preface will give a hint. Others say to check ther reviews on the jacket of
the book and by whom the reviews are being done.

I then ask them to turn to the index of the book. They ask "What do you
want us to look up?" I say I want you to look up and document, for
extra-credit, what is NOT there that has to do with economics and I want
you to send your list of what is NOT there (constructs, theorists, issues,
terms etc) to the author of the text and a copy to me (racism, sexism,
imperialism, Trilateral Commission, Bilderbergers, misogyny, Florida 2000,
Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, fascism, colonialism, neo-colonialism are but
some examples of what they come up with)

For example in Dave Colander's Economics 6th Edition (and I know Dave and
have reviewed his books) I ask them to look up the word "power". They will
not find it in the index. I ask them what power means: perhaps a set of
capabilities that allows/facilitates a person or whole class to
impose/dominate its will and interests over and against the will and
interests of others? I ask does "power" have anything to do with economics?
What about buyer's versus seller's markets? Who has the relative "power"
when supply and demand for a given commodity are overall price elastic
versus overall price inelastic? What about "market power" in the sense of
"pure" competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly and monopoly?

I give them the following metaphor to illustrate the "power" of
inelasticizing supply and demand. A member of the KKK, a hard-core,
in-your-face racist is out in the woods playing militia with his kid Little
Johnny, the apple of his in-bred eye. Now little Johnny climbs up a tree to
act as a lookout for the forces of the ZOG (Zionist Occupying Government)
the UN and the black helicopters. Well little Johnny slips, falls out of
the tree, lands on his head and suffers a compound skull fracture, subdural
hematoma etc. Problem for the KKK guy: Not only does he have no health care
insurance, and not only is he in a rurul area removed from the kinds of
facilities little Johnny needs, but there is only one neurosurgeon within a
five-state radius that has the skills to save little Johnny and SHE is a
Black, Safardic-Jew(culturally), disabled, Lesbian, Communist...

The KKK guy, if he could afford and have access to the facilities and the
neurosurgeon, has to get an attitude readjustment real quick or has a dead
little Johnny. Whose got the "power" and on what basis?

I then tell them I have no choice but to give exams but will be giving
multiple-choice exams (everyone faces the same scoring key that anyone is
free to challenge and is encouraged to challenge) and then I ask why do I
use multiple-choice exams? The students invariably say because they are
easy to score. I explain that I use multiple-choice exams because they take
the "power" out of my hands (with essay exams they had better stay on my
good side, write what I am interested in and cherry-pick/plagiarize from
the sources I like because if they dare to question my assessments, I just
put my resume up against theirs and the discussion is over...) but, in the
case of extra-credit, my assessments will be subjective but then again if I
did not care about them and their learning why would I do extra-credit as
in "extra" work for me?

Jim C.



       
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