Today's 504 class was interesting. Of particular note was the discussion of limiting the size of soda a person is allowed to have when they are at a restaurant. Now I must admit, I do not drink a lot of soda myself, but that is my personal choice. Never would I tell another person to drink less soda than they wished to consume. Unless of course, you are one of my children...and if that is the case, I make all the rules! They have limits that I have chosen to enforce as their parent. We do not keep it in the house for the most part and when I am out with them, they are only allowed a limited supply, so they need to plan when they drink the soda. In addition, on the rare times we go to a fast-food restaurant, we prefer slow food, we DO NOT order the large size meals...you know, the one's that give more fries and larger drinks...But that is MY CHOICE as their parent. Perhaps mandating parents become better parents would be a better law...yes, sarcasm
One of my classmates indicated this was a public health issue and I respectively disagreed...explain no helmets for motorcyclist, or no ban on smoking, or the continued use of alcohol. How about spending time in the sun without 70 sun block, perhaps banning trips to the beach so we keep people from too much exposure to the sun? At what point is a person freedom to choose what they wish to purchase their own choice and not what another person, or a group of others, deems to be acceptable.
For the record, I am not a supported of Mr. Paul, but this is on target!
Yes, we are a society and the society is made up of a bunch of individuals who have been willing to give some of their personal liberties away for the good of all...but seriously you can not have an XL soda but only a large, or in this case as many larges as you want. It would be interesting to see if this will actually lead to more consumption of soda. A smaller cup being refilled a couple of times rather than one large portion. Then add tot he fact, diet sodas, well, you can have any size you want of those...my last thought there is "DIET" is "DIE" with a "T" on the end.
It really scares me how easily people/citizens so easily give up their personal freedoms without question. Their answer that it is for the greater good is shocking to me. At some point, the greater good will go against every individual so how is that good?
So how would I use this subject in the classroom to teach a lesson is in fact our lesson?
I love dialog, and introducing an issue like this to a group would definitely get the dialog moving. Our class was the perfect example. We even needed a break from our lesson to just discuss the issue, which is what I love to do, talk. But I think a good context for this lesson would be how this particular law would affect the personal liberties of individual citizens.
A good place to start would be asking the students to outline what they thought personal liberty meant. In other words, come up with a definition for it and then list characteristics of personal liberty. After doing this individually, a group consensus of the definition and characteristics would be outlined. After consensus, introduce the topic of the soda cupsize law tot he students. For this part of the exercise, I would have the students write down what their personal ideas were. Once we moved to the consensus part of the activity I would use an overhead to collect the ideas of the group. A prepared overhead with the topic question would then be presented.
At this point, I would step back and ask the students to pick a moderator and recorder for the entire class. I would set the expectation the moderator was to not offer opinions but facilitate the conversation, who went next and such. The recorder, which I would have using the front board, would only record the ideas presented.
With about 10 minutes of class left, I would step back in and touch on my arcing question of what does personal liberties mean, using an overhead and listing the answers and comparing them to what the soda cup size law in fact does.
Then for homework...have them drink soda, since soon it will not exist any more because Big Brother has decided so...
