On Literature and Teaching

  Fiction as a safe place When it comes to citizenship education, a great many approaches can be taken, depending on which aspect of it you want to emphasise, or work on: you may be interested in the ‘Norms and values’ aspects, and want to come to grips with the workings of the democratic system, say. Or you may want to concentrate on the skills needed, for example communication skills; or you may focus on global citizenship, aspects of culture and inter-cultural communication and multi-cultural societies. Or you may be more interested in attending to critical thinking and its development in your learners. One issue any such approach will have, however, is that of loyalty. Loyalty to a family, loyalty to traditions, loyalty to a belief (system), loyalty to a culture. The bond that loyalty creates is strong, and will often override such notions as objectivity, multi-perspectival approach and willingness to consider different viewpoints. Thus when discussing, say, Dutch democracy...

    The NRA, the infamous American National Rifle Association that defends the right to bear arms, has long used what is known as a ‘False analogy’ to back up its claims that everyone should have the right to buy, carry and use a weapon, however dangerous. This analogy runs like this: ‘Guns are not the problem: people are. Guns on their own do nothing, it’s how you use them that is the problem’. It’s a false analogy because by the same reasoning, nothing is a problem on its own, and the ones responsible are the users. So the analogy continues: you don’t blame hammers for being a potential weapon to kill with, why should you blame guns? If no-one uses guns to kill other people, guns are simply…not dangerous. I keep seeing the same sort of disingenuous, mendacious and illogical reasoning used when it comes to AI, especially GenAI (like Chatgpt): AI is not the problem, you are. AI is a wonderful thing, it’s the users who don’t understand it, misuse it, abuse it, fraud with i...