In a face-to-face classroom, you can easily moderate a discussion on the Paris Massacres that occurred on Friday, November 13, 2015.
The question is, how do you moderate an emotional (anger-filled, confusing, etc.) discussion topic, in a continuing enrolling online class (students starting and finishing at their pace)?
Do you have a discussion within your online class or as a whole school? Russel Tarr (@russeltarr) says that “…feeling emotional does not mean that we need to stop thinking, or that it is somehow distasteful to reflect rationally on the atrocity that has happened.” Tarr has three lessons on the Paris Massacres (https://t.co/FiNAfirLrg). The lessons topics include:
- Seeing through the eyes of other people within France.
- See through the eyes of other countries who are suffering terror attacks.
- Seeing through the eyes of the terrorists themselves.
By Jean Jullian
Each of the topics has discussion points, web links and suggested tasks.
In an online school, I would suggest finding a couple of teachers (and or students) that would like to moderate an asynchronous online discussion on one or more of Tarr’s topics. At the online school I am at, we had a whole school discussion through the eLib. All the school’s students have access to the eLib.
Another idea for students to share their feelings is to create peace symbols for different cities or countries. The image to the right, by French visual artist, Jean Jullien, is an example of self-expression to help himself and others process the Paris Massacres.
