I wanted to write a post on Wikileaks, basically, how a Social Studies teacher should deal with such a controversial set of documents... what would be the best approach? I want to work with these documents because I feel like there are many opportunities for genuine learning experiences that could arise from working with such exciting material.
That was my initial reaction.
This last week, the Orwellian response of the US government has given me pause, in terms of what I would be comfortable teaching in my classroom, and what I would be comfortable saying online. Students at some US universities got emails last week recommending that they “DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.” I have decided that, given the current climate, a better question might be: what is the best way a Social Studies teacher can hide these documents from their students?
Some suggestions:
Ignore the documents?
Threaten them?
Teach the students how to orchestrate a DoS attack?
All good options.
I thought that overt government censorship went out with McCarthy. Was there this sort of a clampdown when the Watergate documents were released? What else is hidden within these documents? Over 3 million people had access to them, so they weren’t exactly secure to begin with.
My question to you, my colleagues is:
If you were currently teaching a class, would you feel comfortable bringing the Wikileaks documents to school, for your students to analyze?
3 comments:
I find myself struggling with this conflict as well. I believe there is valuable information which we as teachers should allow our students to engage in. But like you, I wonder if this would be a wise decision. What message do we wish to pass on to students? It’s Okay to access information that is confidential and could possibly compromise the lives of others, as long as we are using it in an educational context. I believe this to be irresponsible. So, to answer your question. NO, I wouldn’t feel comfortable bringing wikileaks into my classroom.
Challenging question. I would choose to use a source like Wikileaks depending on the purpose and objective of the lesson. How ethical is it to use resources that were not deemed to be public and could be viewed as stolen.
There are ways to discuss WikiLeaks without getting into the site's content. The controversy surrounding WikiLeaks and the charges against Julina Assange can be used to cover any PLOs dealing with democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and ethics. I also posted on my own blog on some ideas for discussing WikiLeaks in the classroom.
Brian's presentation today is alos a great activity - getting students to analyze articles from major newspapers around the world that reports on WikiLeaks issues.
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