C3 Instructional Shifts – Shift 5: Provide tangible opportunities for taking informed action
I re-read my previous blog post discussing the fourth dimension of the C3 Framework, which discussed the idea of students “Taking Informed Action.” If you go back, you’ll see I was very excited about the idea, but also a little overwhelmed. This component is the most daunting for teachers – indeed, it’s the one that elicits the most concerns when I talk to teachers about the C3.
This past spring, I was on a team of teachers writing Inquiry Blueprints for the New York Toolkit. When we were being assigned topics, I was given world history. Fantastic! That’s my thing – but wait, I had Ancient and Classic world history. All went well until I got to the last part…Taking Informed Action. My first inquiry covered China under Shi Huangdi. There are many great resources, from descriptions of his rule to museum artifacts of the Terra Cotta Army. Then I got to the end. I needed to find a way for students to practice citizenship and relate it to Imperial China. How do I do that? And that was just one of the topics. I needed to provide an opportunity for students to take ancient history (quite literally) and have them apply that knowledge to the public sphere – act as informed citizens beyond the classroom walls.
Wait…can I have political science now instead?
Despite my earnest belief of the relevance of history, I was a bit cynical about this task. What I found through this process, however, was quite eye opening. Throughout the inquiries, I always had a larger historical quandary that framed the particular topic. These ranged from historiographical interpretations, questions of morality in the past, the longevity of social norms, continuity versus change, idealism versus materialism, etc.
What I found was Taking Informed Action is not always going to be about the particular content, but rather the larger implications it has on the human experience. And these larger implications are alive and well—more so than I would have imagined.
So, how could students take informed action about Shi Huangdi? Well, part of their inquiry looked at persecution of his enemies, specifically scholars who the emperor found to be oppositional to his rule. So, the TIA related to current censorship by the Chinese government. The inquiry on Suleiman the Magnificent (and the extent to which he was “magnificent”) looked at issues of church and state in the Ottoman…which is still an issue for modern-day Turkey. The TIA task took the form of writing a recommendation to the European Union concerning Turkey’s membership in consideration of this issue. For the inquiry on the impact of the Gutenberg’s press, students would assess the disparities of their local library and use resources from Project Gutenberg to address the area of need.
TIA opportunities aren’t always obvious. They often require thought, time, and research. On that note, you don’t necessarily need an avenue for taking informed action for every unit topic – so make the times you do include one count.
(And who says students can’t determine an appropriate TIA activity?)
The point is, once TIA clicked for me, it clicked. The key is the larger issue, not the topic’s minutiae. This project truly opened up my eyes to the enduring relevance of these topics and the abilities we have to help students experience this relevance.
One of my roles as Managing Editor is to be a go-to person to help with understanding and implementing the C3 Framework. We can always brainstorm together.