So I ran into a reference to an exercise that's taught in schools called "lifeboat". I'm rather unclear what this is supposed to teach. I believe the idea is to explicate how values lead to morals, but if someone has used this exercise and would like to weigh in I'd love to hear. The exercise is below
______
Values
Clarification Exercise
The Queen Elizabeth III, a major
ocean liner, left the coast of England two days ago. The ship is on its way to New York. There is an international passenger list and
the majority of the people have just entered the dining room for lunch. All of a sudden there is a major explosion in
the engine room. Life boats are released
and the passengers start to board them.
The ship is slowly sinking and there remains only one more
lifeboat. It holds six people, but there
are ten people on deck. Here is the list
of ten people:
1. African-American activist, second-year medical student
2. Rabbi, 54 years old
3. Swedish bio-chemist
4. Hollywood actress-singer-dancer
5. Arab diplomat
6. Japanese accountant, 31 years old
7. his wife, six months pregnant
8. Brazilian athlete-all sports
9. Hispanic poet, 42 years old
10. CIA agent with interpreting skills
1. African-American activist, second-year medical student
2. Rabbi, 54 years old
3. Swedish bio-chemist
4. Hollywood actress-singer-dancer
5. Arab diplomat
6. Japanese accountant, 31 years old
7. his wife, six months pregnant
8. Brazilian athlete-all sports
9. Hispanic poet, 42 years old
10. CIA agent with interpreting skills
The task for your group is to decide
which six people will board the last lifeboat and which four will down with the
queen Elizabeth III. You will have ten
minutes to decide. Which four will you
eliminate? Why?
5 comments:
What grade level is this taught at? It would be fairly useless for, say, high schoolers, but obviously the lesson is "sometimes your personal values may be trumped by practical considerations" (i.e. the sports star and the religious figure may not actually have any practical value whatsoever), and it isn't necessarily a bad thing to try and get that message across to kids.
My son, who has Asperger's, had to answer this question as part of a gifted class. He was 10 or 11 at the time and got VERY upset. He had to leave the room. I'm still annoyed at his teacher for doing this exercise with young.
That should say "young kids".
@Sharon
Any idea what he was supposed to learn from this exercise? 10-11 seems young for moral philosophy, but I've heard middle school is typical for this.
Seems like kind of a no-brainer to me.
Get rid of:
1. The 2nd yr med student, who is probably AA and will cause a great deal of harm to people later on.
2. The Rabbi, who is a practitioner of the immoral ethical dualism known as Talmud.
3. The Hollywood bimbette, who is contributing to the corruption of the youth.
4. The CIA man, who is a terrorist and murderer with legal cover.
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