Adult education and rape, a test case in teaching critical thinking.

Meanwhile back at my language teacher's Listserv, more examples of teachers who are more interested in reforming humanity than teaching language skills.  Here is one recent post. My question is why this issue should be direcled specifically at adult education learners, most of whom really only want the tools to get a better job.

Here is the post.

I am a grad student at ........... University. Some of you may have heard of the recent incident in Richmond, California, in which a 15 year old young woman was repeatedly raped by several young men, while other young people looked on.

My area of interest is a critical pedagogy for adult education; practical applications of critical thinking. What approach do you think would be effective to explore this incident with a group of ABE learners? The questions are: 

     -How did this event happen?

     -What is an educator's responsibility?

     -What concepts are critical for students to understand?

     -Is there a theory/writer who could be used to address this in the classroom?

 

Comments

[Yousef]

As part of a scheme to "improve critical thinking", the management of our school decided that Korean children living in Korea should watch the very US-centric documentary Bowling for Columbine. It didn't take very long for a kid to complain that this had nothing to do with them, since guns aren't even legal in Korea.

Now THAT'S critical thinking!