Brainstorming

This technique can be used to seek solutions to problems that are both theoretical and practical. It requires a problem to be analysed and then solutions to be developed. Brainstorming encourages a high degree of participation, and it stimulates those involved to maximum creativity. Following presentation of a problem, all ideas in response to it are recorded on a board or chart paper. All responses are recorded; no explanations are required and no suggestions are judged or rejected at this stage. The teacher then categorizes and analyses the responses, at which stage some are combined, adapted or rejected. Finally the group makes recommendations and takes decisions on the problem.

a) Message in a Bottle

Ask members of the club to imagine that signals have been received from outer space. The United Nations is going to send information about human beings in a special ship. It is the members’ or students’ job to choose what to send (e.g. music, models of people, clothing, literature, religious objects). Brainstorm possibilities as a group, or set the activity as an individual or small group project. The questions at issue here – “What am I?”, “Who are we?” – are profound. The activities above should provide an opportunity for each person to begin to establish a sense of themselves as human beings and an understanding of human dignity. This is crucial if they are ever to see themselves as human agents, with a responsibility to humanity in all its many and varied forms. Defining what is human in general helps us to see what might be inhuman.

b) Planning for a New Country

Explain that a new land has been discovered that has everything needed to sustain human life. No one has ever lived there before. There are no laws and no history. The whole group will be settling there. You do not know what position you will have in the new country.

Working in small groups, participants in each group give this country a name, a flag, a geographic draw, a population portrait, and finally list ten rights the whole group can agree upon. Each group presents its list and the whole group makes a “general list” that includes all the rights and characteristics mentioned. Discuss the group list (e.g. what would happen if some rights were excluded? Have any important rights been left out? How is this list different from your group or classroom rules?).

Finally, choose by consensus or vote the final portrait of your new country. A creation of a web site (or a sub-section) presenting the final results of the discussions about this new country could be very interesting.