People and Politics:Asking the Right Question

OBJECTIVE
To point out the connection between having power and having a voice. To practice modeling the strategy of questioning in order to determine the answers to questions that effect one's self interest.

DIRECTIONS
Pose the following questions to the class with the underlying goal of getting students to see the connection between power and knowledge and to help them understand that, in order to attain knowledge, one needs to know what questions to ask.

QUESTIONS

Who has the most power in our country?
Possible responses: people with money, the president, the people at the top. Accept all answers within reason.

How did most of these people get money or positions with a lot of influence? How did these people become powerful? What did the have to have? How did they get where they are?
Possible responses: someone gave them a lot of money, they were really smart, they went to a good school. Accept all answers within reason.

TEACHER EXPLANATION
Even the people that had the benefit of money had to know what they were doing; they had to be expert on their subject. In other words, they had to have a lot of knowledge.

Think of how you feel if you don't know what someone is talking about or if a friend uses a word that you do not know. Usually that makes us feel less intelligent and sometimes even inferior. The person who knows what we do not suddenly has the power to make us feel badly about ourselves.

IF YOU DON'T KNOW SOMETHING WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO?
In order to get the right information, you have to ask the right question. For example, if you were interested in researching colleges that had good job training programs and services for learning disabled students, you would have to ask those specific questions. Asking for a list of all the colleges would not be much help. Similarly, if you were interested in participating in a cosmetology program but were reading at a low level, you would have to inquire about the entrance requirements and the level of the material you would be expected to read.