Frame of Reference:A Teaching Strategy with Student Handouts Excerpted from: A. Tiatorio: Freedom and Equality: The Human Ethical Enigma |
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Ethics is an innate sense of how to behave that has evolved over eons of human experience with associative life. It is the natural way of protecting individual freedom within social groups by constantly acting to achieve and to maintain equality within those groups. Equality is intrinsically understood to be the bedrock of fairness and justice, which is in turn seen as the final defense of freedom. All people automatically act on these premises. Ethical dilemmas arise when conflicting individuals with different group frames of reference understand issues parochially and make different judgments as to what is fair. The lesson here should be to help students to understand that all people are driven by an essentially identical ethical drive to seek equality as the foundation of fairness and freedom. Although it is instructive to understand the reasons that support each side, it is important not to simply debate issues. Debates promote the belief that right and wrong can be determined by artful argument. Students need to learn that in almost all cases nearly all people act in ways that they can justify to be right and good. Normal human beings rarely, if ever, act with conscious evil intent. Frame of Reference, or point of view, can influence one’s understanding of facts and can radically impact judgment concerning right and wrong. Students need to learn to routinely consider ethical issues from the widest possible perspective. The following exercises will help establish the critical importance of frame of reference. The following exercise was partly adapted from a strategy in Edwin O. Fenton’s New History of the United States.
Student Handouts: Frame of Reference
Teacher’s Guide Frame of Reference Exercise A Distribute Student Handout 1A to the class and be sure they don’t see Student Handout 2A. Ask them to study it and working individually to create three or more logical groupings for the items. Students will invariably see biological categories and divide the items as though they were animals, birds and fish, or some variant of that. Students rarely deviate from this but, be watchful and intercept anyone who stumbles on the “trick” solution; ask them not to give it away. Student Handout 2A assumes the items are words and divides them by the number of syllables. Have students explain their categories and when they think the question is settled, give them Student Handout 2A. Let them ponder it until someone “gets it.” Use the following questions to begin a discussion of frame of reference. Why did they identify biological groups and no one see linguistic groups? Their life experience predisposed them to interpret the world scientifically. Why did they ALL see biological groups? They have a common cultural experience. Would groups of people with a different cultural experience see the world differently from them? Obviously. Give some examples of cultural differences that cause people to see things from a different frame of reference. Encourage extended discussion.
Frame of Reference Exercise B Use the Student Handout 1B and ask students to solve the problem. Students will almost invariably view this problem from a frame of reference point inside the plane and intuitively see a bullet that arcs downward and away from them. Use Student Handout 2B as a homework assignment. Suggest that students consult with their science teacher about the laws of physics which apply to this problem. In reality the bullet will drop straight down because the equal and opposite forces acting on it horizontally cancel each other out and gravity draws it down. Remember, the bullet is already moving when it is discharged in the opposite direction. This charge brakes and stops the bullet while the gun barrel (still moving with the plane) slides out from around it. The motionless bullet then drops straight down. Students need to assume a fixed frame of reference point, standing and looking up from the ground beneath the plane to see this. Some students have a difficult time accepting this, even though it is manifestly clear, attesting to the power of frame of reference in skewing judgment. The frame of reference illusion is magnified by the picture which does not show the plane moving away from the bullet and thus exacerbates the problem.
Frame of Reference: Follow-up Activity Read the following Sufi stories to the class and ask the students to interpret them. Encourage students to relate the “point” of the story to their own lives. What Are You Laughing At? The Mulla was riding his donkey. As he turned onto a busy street in the village he suddenly slipped in the saddle and fell ignominiously to the ground. A group of passers-by began to point and laugh. "What are you laughing at? " asked the Mulla angrily. "Did it ever occur to you that I might have a reason for falling down?” People define truth for themselves and will rationalize away any failures. Everyone puts a spin on the truth.
The Merchant A rich merchant spent some days in the village of Nasrudin. Although he was miserly, people were respectful towards him. Nasrudin asked someone: "Why do you salute him every time he passes? You never get a tip .from him" "You don't understand; he is a merchant. That is something, isn't it? Besides, we feel he might give us something, one day." A week after the visitor had left, Nasrudin went to market. He bought a dozen watermelons at one stall, then sold them at the next. He suffered a loss on the transaction. Then he did the same again with something else. After he had been around to most of the stall-holders, he went to the teahouse and airily ordered an expensive pink tea with whipped cream and flavored with cardamoms. Presently the teahouse began to fill with people anxious to know what had happened to Nasrudin. Someone asked him: "Mulla, why do you buy things and sell them again regardless of price ?" "How dare you ask me questions!" roared the Mulla. "I am a merchant. That is something, isn't it? And I might give you something, one day!" Reality is not as important as perception? What is true is not as important as what people believe to be true.
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