Social Conscience – Pop Tab Challenge

When I began developing my curriculum for English Literature, I looked for theory concepts that could be compared and contrasted throughout the entire year. I wanted some concrete study categories that I could frame lessons around and that the students could track. I didn't want my lit class to be ambiguous, making studying uncertain and frustrating. And I wanted theory that could be applied beyond just English literature. In the Renaissance we read "Meditation 17" by John Donne, in which is nestled his famous quote "No man is an island." I have always used this quote to discuss Donne's argument that we must look after each other because mankind was not created to be isolated. We must look beyond our cares and see the hurts of others as well. After doing some outside reading I stumbled on the term "social conscience" and a bit more research proved that this was one of those theory concepts I was looking for.

Social conscience is an awareness of wrongs and problems in society and feeling of responsibility to help fix them. It encompasses several areas of life from humanitarian aid to recycling. As Christians we know it simply as the Good Samaritan principle. With this idea in mind, I developed terms and graphics for each lit period.

For the Romantic period, I use the "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" monkey as my graphic to represent Laissez-faire, an attitude of ignoring problems because we don't want to get our hands dirty or to be made aware of ugly truths. The kids are always frustrated with this lit period because though the poetry is beautiful, society fell apart because of the poets' lack of social conscience. These guys showed up on my desk the other day. There wasn't a note with them but they have to be from a senior.

As a small challenge to be more socially conscious, I put a basket on my desk and challenge the seniors to bring me the tabs off their pop cans. I explain that charities in the States can get money for the tabs. I have promised to deliver their tabs to a charity like the Ronald McDonald houses the next time I go to the States. Seniors have been bringing them in all year – sometimes one at a time, sometimes strings of them from the dorm. We are now done with the challenge for 2008-2009. I will show next year's class this bag of tabs and see if we can match or beat this amount. The seniors were even going around Spring party collecting tabs from underclassmen and explaining that the tabs will help charities. Maybe a simple pop tab will make them think of how they can creatively get involved. (by the way my cowboy hat is in this so you can maybe get a size refernce fo the volume of the tabs).

During the summer of 2008 I followed through on my promise to the classes of 2007 and 2008 and delivered their pop tabs.