Thursday, October 24 - AM Fluency

Today we had a lively class. 

We began with a Halloween-inspired opening discussion involving a thought experiment of a killer snail. Imagine someone showed you a briefcase with a million dollars inside and said, “This is yours… under one condition. If you take this money, a killer snail will be dropped on the globe somewhere and will pursue you for the rest of your life. It will never stop moving. If it touches you, you instantly die.” We shared our opinions: would we take the money? Most students in the class said no.

We then finished the article about the Vietnam War, practicing one learning objective along the way (the learning objective on organizational strategies). The article noted that two million Vietnamese were killed in the war, including women and children. I remarked that, at the moment, about 40,000 Palestinians have died, including women and children. Some in class disputed this number. They felt the number was probably inflated. We then had a vigorous debate about the credibility of the media. Should all media be distrusted? Can we believe anything that the media says? How are we to know anything about current events if all news stories are biased?

Emily came to our class to discuss sensitivity toward people from other races and cultures. This led to our second lively debate of today’s class: Does the use of terms like African-American and Asian-America divide the country? Why can’t all Americans, whatever their race, simply be called Americans? Or, on the other hand, do those terms help us celebrate and protect people, something important in a country of immigrants? 

We also listened to our second protest song, “For What It’s Worth” (1966), by Buffalo Springfield.