This morning I watched the judge instructing the jury in the Casey Anthony trial, and it occurred to me that the skills needed to be a good juror (and thus a responsible citizen in our society) include the ability to:
- follow a sustained argument over a period of hours, days or weeks
- juxtapose two sets of sustained arguments
- connect witness testimony to the sustained argument in terms of the strength of support
- listen attentively for long periods without any opportunity to interact with the source of information
- comprehend high school or college-level vocabulary, such as “abiding”, “negligence”, “bodily”, “deception”, “objective” and “knowingly” within a prescribed context
- take notes that will be useful later in the recall of both facts and interpretation
- interpret bias on the part of both the defense and the prosecution
- determine when the defense or prosecution are attempting to evoke an emotional response designed to sway the juror in examining the facts
- evaluate witness testimony for bias, consistency, and truthfulness
- retain an extensive collection of facts in mind for an extended period of time
- retain the judge’s instructions and fine points of law in mind during deliberation
- operate according to a list of rules one may not agree with nor fully understand
Most of these are practiced in the traditional classroom, rather than in a constructivist or connectivist pedagogical model. (In my class, the development of historical theses practices the process of such skills, albeit with far more choice of evidence.)
Is it possible that the new and exciting modes of teaching we examine would undermine the ability of people to be good citizens?
Digital literacy in general would, of course, help greatly in understanding evidence from social networks, computer databases, etc., so I have no argument there. But what about following ones own interests, learning through networks, aggregating information independently, and constructing ones own knowledge? I can’t help but think that habits of mind which discourage sustained attention and argument would make being a juror, and thus a good citizen, more difficult.
Note: After the judge’s instructions, it was realized that some of the jurors had left their notebooks on their chairs when they went to the deliberation room. Did those jurors not take notes? not need them? are they that skilled in factual retention after, what is it, 19 days of trial? I really don’t think so….
The operative word in your first sentence after the list of skills is “practiced”. Students who perform WELL in a traditional classroom are expected to have already acquired most or all of the listed skills before they come into a traditional course. Those who have less of a mastery of these skills may perform satisfactorily if they are able to improve significantly in these areas during the first few weeks of the course. Even so, the vast majority of discipline-specific skill acquisition, and content mastery are developed outside of the classroom in a traditional course, and to a significant extent even in a constructivist classroom. However, a constructivist classroom like yours (or mine, where I also use a process-oriented approach) does help to teach and develop, as well as practice, higher level cognitive skills including evaluation, analysis and synthesis, which will be at least as important in jury service as those you have listed above. Even though the prosecution and defense both present arguments they want the jury to not just follow, but adopt, it is important for the members of the jury to construct their OWN arguments based on the evidence presented, after applying some of the other filters and analytic techniques that ARE learned and developed in a constructivist classroom. It is really the listening for long periods of time and taking notes that are not developed in a constructivist classroom, and you are right, those are important in a jury setting, and some business settings as well.
Hi Mark! I agree that it is often preferable for content-specific skills to develop outside class (through reading especially) and for the skills to be honed in class, though in many traditional classes the reverse is true.
And indeed a constructivist pedagogy can develop the skills needed here, as well as the ability to construct ones own perspective (I’d hesitate to use the word “arguments” here).
But what I’m seeing is pedagogies emerging which are so constructivist as to assume that such skills will develop through the seeking and processing of information on ones own, following the student’s interests and inclinations, with just some content-specific guidance on the side. I also see a recent downplaying of skills like notetaking and sustained attention (including the continual dissing of “boring lectures”), and a broad social trend away from the ability to construct or follow a sustained argument (a la Jaron Lanier and Nicholas Carr). That’s what I’m concerned about.