For most students, summer is a time to take a break from textbooks and relax. However, unlike other students, 14 teenagers from different private schools of the capital decided to make the most out of their free time by taking a unique course that aimed to instil critical thinking among youngsters and encourage them to form their own opinions.
The certificate distribution for the eight-week course - “Power, Authority, and the Individual” - was held at Mocca Coffee on Thursday.
The course, that started at GSIS on June 18 and ended on August 8, covered the themes of freedom, citizenship, power and authority. Invariably, course books such as Plato’s The Republic, Aristotle’s Politics, Machiavelli’s The Prince and Iqbal’s The Muslim Community made these students wonder what their place in the society was.
“I was watching ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ on television the other day and I saw Machiavellian theories in it. If it wasn’t for this course I would have never been able to analyse the movie,” said 16-year-old Salman Khan, a student of GSIS.
“This course made me realise the importance of understanding citizenship, which is a two-way street. We can’t blame the system for everything that is wrong when our own actions fail us,” commented 18-year-old Furqan Butt of Westminster.
Hard philosophy on civics aside, the class enjoyed what was perhaps the hallmark of the course - deconstructing JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Seerat Zara of Beaconhouse Margalla Islamabad said she was surprised when she saw Harry Potter on the syllabus, but it became her favourite part of the course later on. “I learnt to find depth and complexity in seemingly simplistic texts,” she said.
Zara, along with her classmates, said the experience was unparalleled to anything she had learnt at school. She hoped to see her school focus on critical thinking as well.
Though the course did not focus on any ideology, students held lively conversations about their views on the country and politics during the ceremony.
In addition, with most students approaching voting age, they meaningfully debated their respective choice for potential candidates, showcasing vividly the skills of critical analysis and tolerance of opinions they had learnt during the course.
“It would be wrong to say private schools don’t instil critical thinking, but it is not enough. We are usually just given knowledge, not skills,” said Sameea Butt of Columbia University, one of the pioneers of the course.
Butt, along with Nyma Khan of University of London’s external programme, has arranged the course for the second consecutive year.
The duo is also looking forward to next year’s class, despite uncertainty about funding and venue. They also plan to add more native texts to the course material in future.
“So far the support of all private schools has been great, we hope it will keep growing and reaching out to more students,” said Butt.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 24th, 2012.
COMMENTS (2)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
1714129906-0/Clint-Eastwood-(1)1714129906-0-270x192.webp)
Awesome! the course really was great! and thanks for writing about it, Mavra! :)
awesome! it really was great! and thanks for writing this, Mavra! :)