Ridgefield sophomores investigate right and wrong

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Sophomores at Ridgefield High School explored their perceptions of the image of mankind and morality through innovative class projects during Jill Uhacz’s language arts classes.

Throughout the multi-week unit, students studied philosophy about the different images of man, read The Lord of the Flies, watched the movie Castaway, and participated in an in-class bomb shelter activity used to create student teams for the next six weeks.

Uhacz developed the unit using project suggestions from a teacher she worked with at a different school.

“She shared so many great ideas with me,” said Uhacz. “She created wonderful activities that I used as a starting point, and then jumped off from there.”

The images of man

Uhacz taught the students five different philosophies describing the nature of humanity and assigned a writing project using the material. Students selected one or more of the following philosophies which they felt described the nature of mankind:

• “Man is a wolf to his fellow man” suggests that humans are antisocial, aggressive and immoral creatures whose behavior is stimulated by dangerous instincts.

• “Tabula Rasa or ‘blank slate’” portrays humanity as amoral or ethically neutral and suggests that humans learn morality throughout their life.

• “Man is a mixture of good and evil” presents the concept of human nature as a union of opposites with good and evil competing to capture the human heart.

• “Man is naturally good and can improve himself” provides a more optimistic view that human beings everywhere are basically good and continuously improvable.

• “Man will transcend himself” considers every individual as a fountain of unlimited possibilities with the freedom to grow beyond any individual before.

As part of a writing assignment, students selected a philosophy (or philosophies) which they felt best represented their own perception of the image of man.

“The kids are so great with this challenging new material,” said Uhacz. “Each class participated in very intense conversations about each of the different concepts and what it meant to the students.”

Even though each student explores their own perception of the image of man individually, the classes started to develop a common generalization.



“The classes this year generally seemed to believe that man is a blank slate with no instinctual moral compass,” said Uhacz. “That being said, a few students suggested that we all do have a conscience which led to spirited debate.”

Dropping the bomb

What would you do if you had to choose who would survive after a nuclear bomb detonated in your city? Uhacz’s students explored that very concept in an activity Uhacz used to create randomly-assigned student teams.

At the beginning of class, students were separated into two large groups of 12 students each and told to pretend that they were at a dinner party when the Civil Defense warning system announces that enemy planes are entering Washington State and proceed to drop nuclear bombs on the area.

Continuing the story, the host happens to maintain a well-equipped bomb shelter in the basement where all 12 of the dinner party guests have survived the blasts. A radio message announces that the radiation will last an entire month. Unfortunately, there’s only enough food and supplies in the bomb shelter to support six people for that amount of time so each group must decide which six characters will survive.

Each student received an envelope with their character including detailed background information. The 12 characters included a psychology professor, a nutritionist, a student performing radiation research, an individual with a photographic memory, a pregnant mother, her medical student husband, an electrician, the electrician’s son, a minister, a football player, a happy go-lucky romantic, and the bomb shelter’s owner.

As a group, the students chose five people to be saved in addition to the shelter owner (a project requirement) with the remaining six characters sent out of the shelter. Students rationalized who should stay based on a variety of factors and opinions. One group voted as a democracy and kept certain roles based on how they would help the group in the coming month. The second group debated the different roles with some students suggesting kicking out the shelter owner despite the project’s rules.

Uhacz asked both groups if they considered diversity in making their decisions. Both groups explained that skin factor and gender played no role in the decision; that the selections were made based on the most common good provided to the group as a whole.

Working as a team

Once the bomb shelter activity was finished, Uhacz explained to the class that their new groups - those who stayed in the shelter and those who were kicked out - were now their assigned student groups for the next six weeks. Students were surprised how the Bomb Shelter Activity so effectively and randomly selected which students would be in each group.

Over the next six weeks, team-based projects will require contributions from each team member with each team developing expectations and consequences should a teammate fail to contribute. During the class, groups committed themselves to help each member improve their grades by studying together while also implementing rules for what would happen if student members failed to do their work.

Uhacz reminded students to always keep their own perception of the Image of Man in mind throughout the coming six weeks as upcoming projects will continue to challenge their perceptions. For Uhacz, challenging students to truly think about their own perceptions is key to her class.

“One student told me ‘this class makes my brain hurt!’ which, to me, means I’m doing a good job!” said Uhacz.