Using DD

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Using the DD Materials to...
Impartially Address Religion 

If you are teaching about religion, then you would know already that treatment of the religion domain in public education has to be impartial as well as accurate.  But, the instructional resources that you rely on may fail that test.  For example, current textbooks inform students that many seminal events of history derive from religious motivations.  Yet they do not likewise label historic contributions of important skeptics and dissenters as the deeds of persons acting in good conscience while holding to distinctly irreligious beliefs.  Overlooking nonreligion when teaching about religion tilts the subject matter playing field. Different Drummers helps you to achieve fairness and balance.

With neutrality a civic mandate for public school teachers, it is important that your instruction not privilege any one religion over others, or privilege religion in general.  Different Drummers' lessons and background materials can help you in your handling of this sometimes controversial subject matter. The module draws from diverse religious and freethought areas (e.g., Buddhism, Christianity, 18th century Deism, agnosticism, Hinduism).

Using the DD Materials to...
Focus on Nonconformist Thinking

if you are a teacher whose curriculum includes critical thinking, logic, independent reasoning, or similar topics of study, then you will appreciate material within DD.  The program gives particular emphasis to three "habits of mind" that are frequently exhibited by nonconforming thinkers.

bulletdivergent thinking
bulletinquisitiveness
bulletskepticism

Through a brief sequence of activities, students come to understand and recognize these styles of thinking and, when given assorted exemplary quotations and/or invented remarks, readily classify statements by category.

The module offers varied examples of historical situations in which free and independent thought changed the course of history.  Lessons and activities present historical figures who were nonconformist in their thinking, and students analyze the situations and scrutinize the various individualists, always on the lookout for the character traits of inquisitiveness, skepticism, and or divergent thinking in relation to the individuals.  

Through such examples as Socrates, Chaucer, Lavoisier, Wollstonecraft, Voltaire, Copernicus, Darwin, and Cady Stanton, youngsters grow to appreciate that different drummers' views may turn out to be of benefit in the long run.

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Last Updated 5/15/2005

Supported by OABITAR (Objectivity, Accuracy, and Balance In Teaching About Religion)
    a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization