at University of British Columbias Okanagan campus
EDST 497 D July 9 - 13, 2012 facilitated by Clay McLeod, Grade 4 teacher at South Kelowna Elementary http://mistermcleod.weebly.com/ and consultant www.continuumconsulting.ca Learn Intellectual Self-Defence: A SIE 2012 Seminar Presented by Clay McLeod, LL.B., B.Ed., M.A.(Ed.) www.continuumconsulting.ca or http://members.shaw.ca/claymcleod & http://mistermcleod.weebly.com/ @claymcleod1969 on Twitter
A wiki (collaborative on-line space) related to this seminar
can be found on-line at http://mindfurniture.pbworks.com/
In this seminar, you will:
demonstrate a basic understanding of Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Hermans propaganda model and Naomi Kleins shock doctrine theory; apply critical thinking skills - including questioning, comparing, summarizing, analyzing, evaluating, connecting, identifying implications, and drawing conclusions - to a variety of issues relating to history, current events, and politics; justify and defend, with evidence and logic, coherent perspectives on issues discussed and explored in class and between classes; and demonstrate an understanding of how the development of these understandings and skills can be facilitated in the classroom.
Will you choose the red pill or the blue pill?
Some Ideas to Consider Media messages include propaganda designed to control thought (even, and perhaps especially, in democracy). Media are businesses, selling a product ; their product is audiences (you), and their customers are other businesses. Given this, whose perspectives do you think are reflected in media? The ideology expressed in media messages serves the interests of established power, helping to maintain and strengthen the power relationships of the status quo. The worldview reflected by those media messages contains many assumptions and ideas that make it seem like current power relationships are justified and right. In this way, the media - and other aspects of culture, including education - manufactures consent to these power relationships. Intellectual self-defence is a response to established powers attempt to use media messages to manufacture your consent to their power; it involves asking questions about media messages, and it challenges conventional beliefs that allow social injustice to exist. Intellectual self-defence serves to protect citizens of democracy from the manipulation and thought control of powerful elites who use media to pursue their agendas. Critical consciousness (the goal of practicing intellectual self-defence) is about perceiving social injustice and then taking action to create social justice. Day 1: Monday, July 9, 2012
Introduction to Intellectual Self-Defence:
The Propaganda Model and How Media Functions and Performs
Day 2: Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Revealing and Questioning Assumptions:
How has Established Power Arranged the Furniture of Our Minds to Make the Status Quo Seem Natural and Justified?
Day 3: Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Paradigm Shift and Creating New Frameworks:
Learning to Arrange the Furniture of Our Minds Ourselves
Day 4: Thursday, July 12, 2012
New Frameworks and Counter Hegemony:
Using Intellectual Self-Defence and Critical Consciousness to Work Towards Social Justice
Day 5: Friday, July 13, 2012
Hope for the Future:
Implementing Intellectual Self-Defence in Your Classroom
Links and resources relating to these topics and
themes can be found on the seminars wiki at http://mindfurniture.pbworks.com/. The conversation can continue there between sessions. Depending on the learning needs and aspirations of participants, these topics and themes may be altered. TM Political Compass
Where do you belong on
the Political CompassTM?
Take the quiz at
www.politicalcompass.org
With Names of Historical Figures & Alternate Conceptions of
Canadian Parties the Political Spectrum Snowball Notes (An assumption that common media messages help to promote and propagate) Doodle for meaning
Give One/Get One Notes (Questions one can ask
about media messages that may be propaganda) Doodle for meaning Card Stack and Shuffle Notes (Ideas for developing intellectual self-defence and critical consciousness in the classroom)