![\"Image](\"https:\/\/imgix.bustle.com\/uploads\/image\/2019\/1\/17\/4633fbc9-043e-4f16-bf83-1d2553e3d8c4-gif_3762.jpg?w=970&h=546&fit=crop&crop=faces&auto=format&q=70\")
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During January, we had an awkward amount of time between the end of examination period and the Lunar New Year holiday.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t enough time to begin a new unit or do any \u201creal\u201d teaching, so I pulled out one of the more interesting group discussions for a class activity.\u00a0 The premise was simple: A cruise ship sank and ten people were able to make it onto a lifeboat.\u00a0 The problem is that there are too many people and if they don\u2019t get rid of two people, the boat will sink.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Each person has a pro and a con that would justify their survival\/death.\u00a0 The ten survivors are as follows:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n For this activity, the students first had to decide for themselves who the two people they thought should die.\u00a0 Afterwards, they were put into groups and as a group had to come to a consensus and justify it to the class.\u00a0 I already had in my mind who I thought they would choose, but there were a few surprises along the way.<\/p>\n In most of the classes, they chose the Millionaire<\/strong> and the Crying Girl <\/strong>(the two I figured most would choose), but it was their reasoning that piqued my interest.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 For the Millionaire<\/strong>, most argued that he was greedy, unfriendly, and useless, so he should be the one to die.\u00a0 For the Crying Girl<\/strong>, they argued that she was annoying and served no purpose, so there was no reason to keep her alive.\u00a0 However, in another class, it was argued that the Sailor<\/strong> should die.\u00a0 When I asked why, the group responded that it was likely he was responsible for the cruise ship sinking, so he should die as punishment.\u00a0 For the majority of my students, they made their choices based on utility \u2013 the survivors served a purpose to the survival of the group.\u00a0 For other groups, their argument was based on justice \u2013 \u201cYou caused the boat to sink, so you shouldn\u2019t survive.\u201d<\/p>\n As I was talking with one student during their preparation time, he looked at me and said, \u201cThis is so difficult.\u201d\u00a0 I asked him why that was.\u00a0 He pointed to the Widow<\/strong> and said that she doesn\u2019t have much use on the boat and if she has the baby that would take up more <\/em>space, but it wouldn\u2019t be right to kill her.\u00a0 I asked why he thought that and he said, \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u00a0 It just feels wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n In The Righteous Mind<\/em>, Jonathan Haidt argues that intuition plays a major role in the development of our moral compass.\u00a0 He brings up many short vignettes and poses them as questions to people to see if they would judge it as morally wrong.\u00a0 For example,<\/p>\n A man goes to the supermarket once a week and buys a chicken.\u00a0 But before cooking the chicken, he has sexual intercourse with it.\u00a0 Then he cooks it and eats it.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n What he finds is that many people would say that the above example is morally wrong, but would not be able to explain why<\/em> it was wrong.\u00a0 In fact, they could also be convinced otherwise after a little pressure.<\/p>\n Haidt uses the analogy of the Rider and Elephant to demonstrate this phenomenon.\u00a0 In the analogy, the Rider represents rational thought while the Elephant represents emotions.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 The idea is that we come to our judgments rather quickly and intuitively (i.e., emotionally) while it takes longer for our reason (the Rider) to step back and guide our emotions in a productive manner.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t to say that emotions are uncontrollable or bad, but rather that they occur instinctually.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve often found in my discussions with people that when I make a value judgment on an issue, it often comes intuitionally (using Myers-Briggs, I fall into the INFJ category, so it feeds into that).\u00a0 It isn\u2019t until much later that I can actually rationalize why<\/em> I feel the way that I do about a topic.\u00a0 Or it takes processing it with other people in a full on discussion.\u00a0 In this regard, I relate with Michael Scott from The Office <\/em>when he says, \u201cSometimes I\u2019ll start a sentence, and I don\u2019t even know where it\u2019s going.\u00a0 I just hope I find it along the way.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 When we try to come to terms with why we believe something, perhaps this is just part of the process: We make our snap judgments and later rationalize.<\/p>\n When I first read through the assignment I mentioned, after reading the bios of the different characters I already knew who I would sacrifice.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until my students asked me who I would choose that the rational part came.<\/p>\n So, just for fun: Which two of the ten would you choose to sacrifice?\u00a0 How did you<\/em> come to your conclusion?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> The activity was adapted from https:\/\/en.islcollective.com\/english-esl-worksheets\/material-type\/role-plays-and-improvisation-activities\/shipwrecked-survival-game\/2243<\/a> . The activity is meant to be on the level of ESL students, so while it may seem simple, it is actually a challenging activity for them.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> It must be noted that my students have difficulty expressing complex ideas in English, as it is not their first language.\u00a0 While their responses may seem basic in English, my co-teacher informed me that their debates in Chinese were much more nuanced and critical.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind<\/em>, New York: Pantheon Books (2012), 3<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Ibid., 53.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a>Link to this particular scene in The Office:<\/em>\u00a0 https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jDQDDhLZO-4<\/a><\/p>\n Image taken from: https:\/\/www.bustle.com\/p\/whats-the-prize-for-shipwrecked-2019-this-years-castaways-could-win-some-serious-cash-15833301<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During January, we had an awkward amount of time between the end of examination period and the Lunar New Year holiday.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t enough time to begin a new unit or do any \u201creal\u201d teaching, so I pulled out one of the more interesting group discussions for a class activity.\u00a0 The premise was simple: A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[1214,869,1799],"class_list":["post-26055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure-mystery-sci-fi","tag-haidt","tag-morality","tag-shipwrecked","cohort-lgp10"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26055"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26058,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26055\/revisions\/26058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n