Activity Five

This activity is to accompany Unit Two of the Curriculum Guide.

Incorporating the C.E.L.s:

• Independent Learning
• Critical & Creative Thinking
• Personal & Social Values & Skills

Concept Development Lesson for:

• Decision Making
• Totalitarianism
• Democracy
• Effectiveness

This concept development activity provides students with an opportunity to compare and contrast totalitarian and democratic decision making. The comparison of the two decision- making styles will involve using the skills of dialectical reasoning. The lesson also involves students in group and debating activities.

Knowledge Objectives

The student will:

• know that different situations will require use of different decision-making processes;
• know that even within democratic societies, governments use different decision-making processes; and,
• know that domestic considerations play a critical role in the decision-making processes of national governments.

Skills Development

The student will:

• practise using a grid to organize information and to analyze the similarities and differences between two paradigms;
• practise the skills of dialectical reasoning;
• practise the skills of describing cause and effect relationships; and,
• practise defining and applying criteria as a basis for making an evaluation.

Values Issues

The student will:

• discuss the criteria that should/could be used to determine the decision-making style that should be used by leaders and nations;
• discuss whether one of the two decision making styles is "moral"; and
• discuss whether more involvement of the public in national decision making results in the implementation of the "best" decisions.

Outline of the Activity

Step One

Have students, in a class discussion, identify and record the key characteristics of a totalitarian and a democratic society.

• The use of a grid for comparison purposes may be helpful.

Provide the students with the following list of situations, in which decisions that will affect a large number of people are necessary:

• whether to evacuate a community because of the danger of a flood or forest fire;
• whether to institute a compulsory draft for all young men in a society;
• whether to commit armed forces to a conflict in another region of the world;
• whether to increase taxes on a product or service; and,
• whether to institute laws restricting the activities of a specific group of people within a society.

Have the students discuss which decision-making process should be used in each of the above situations.

Step Two

Provide the students with a description of the political situation facing most developed nations in the latter 1930s. Note the following events:

• the aggressive territorial demands and acquisitions made by Japan, Italy and Germany;
• the economic problems most nations faced because of the Great Depression; and,
• the reluctance of many leaders and the public to participate in activities that might lead to another world war.

As a class, identify some of the critical decisions nations were faced with during this period.

• Should the government increase spending on the military in light of increased foreign aggression?
• Should the nation enter into international alliances to secure the security of the nation?
• Should domestic economic and social needs take priority over international concerns?

Have the students form groups. Ask the groups to use dialectical reasoning to identify the decision-making style that would be most useful in making the decisions outlined above.

Groups will present their conclusion to the class for discussion purposes.