Learning target: We can use a map of causes to tell a story
1. Starter - We're going to spend most of the day continuing to work with the causes map we developed yesterday. I’ll start by giving you copies the maps we created yesterday. We'll start by looking at this causes map developed by a grassroots development group in Honduras. If you had to choose one of the symptoms to address on in this map, which would you pick? Treating all the causes as equal, which one would you pick to work on? Look carefully at the connections in the map. Treating which cause will have the greatest impact?
2. Our River Maps - Yesterday, we made these two maps (Map 1 and Map 2). We’re going to change the jargon a bit today. Look at this list and your two maps and pick an immediate, intermediate and root cause.
3. Why are we doing this? - The complexity of figuring out how all these causes relate to one another can be overwhelming. "It's too complicated!" you might scream. Who uses these maps anyway? In truth, everyone.
I'm going show you several examples and talk about how governments, non-profits, health agencies, corporations, and businesses use these types of maps. Essentially, you are building a model. It's not as tangible as building a model of trebuchet or breaking down an equation in calculus. But it's the same skill set. You're creating a model about how you think the problem works. It's like building a circuit board. A connect to B connects to C which causes D.
This is "systems thinking" and is an essential skill for tacking social problems, planning a marketing campaign, figuring out how an ecosystem works. For us, the model will help us make decide what to do. Imagining standing up at exhibition of this project and someone asks, why the class decided to do this action project as opposed to another. "Well," you'll say, "we created this map of the problem and it revealed that if we addressed this part of the problem, we could have the greatest possible impact."
The map will also tell us a story, a story of the past. The grand narrative that we're going to construct has a past (the causes), a present (different interests), and a future (potential solutions). By Friday, we want to be about 80% solid on the story. Once we have the story, we can decide on the specific mission and goals for our project.
4. Creating the Map - Now after going over the "why," we're going to work together to create one map. You’ll each give your "immediate causes," "intermediate causes," and "root causes." We'll build this together. After break you’ll nominate connections.
5. Stories from the Map - We'll use the Causes handout that I gave you on Tuesday, to pull a story and other information from the map we create. How does our map relate to the five types of causes described in the handout? Who does this map empower to find a solution? What alliances does it foster? What solution does it suggest? In the polis, people fight over these causal stories all the time. We can criticize and think about "but what abouts...." all day. But we're in the polis too, so we need to figure out what causal story we believe in.
Homework due Friday, October 2nd
Read the handout on Interests that I'll give out in class
1. Starter - We're going to spend most of the day continuing to work with the causes map we developed yesterday. I’ll start by giving you copies the maps we created yesterday. We'll start by looking at this causes map developed by a grassroots development group in Honduras. If you had to choose one of the symptoms to address on in this map, which would you pick? Treating all the causes as equal, which one would you pick to work on? Look carefully at the connections in the map. Treating which cause will have the greatest impact?
2. Our River Maps - Yesterday, we made these two maps (Map 1 and Map 2). We’re going to change the jargon a bit today. Look at this list and your two maps and pick an immediate, intermediate and root cause.
3. Why are we doing this? - The complexity of figuring out how all these causes relate to one another can be overwhelming. "It's too complicated!" you might scream. Who uses these maps anyway? In truth, everyone.
I'm going show you several examples and talk about how governments, non-profits, health agencies, corporations, and businesses use these types of maps. Essentially, you are building a model. It's not as tangible as building a model of trebuchet or breaking down an equation in calculus. But it's the same skill set. You're creating a model about how you think the problem works. It's like building a circuit board. A connect to B connects to C which causes D.
This is "systems thinking" and is an essential skill for tacking social problems, planning a marketing campaign, figuring out how an ecosystem works. For us, the model will help us make decide what to do. Imagining standing up at exhibition of this project and someone asks, why the class decided to do this action project as opposed to another. "Well," you'll say, "we created this map of the problem and it revealed that if we addressed this part of the problem, we could have the greatest possible impact."
The map will also tell us a story, a story of the past. The grand narrative that we're going to construct has a past (the causes), a present (different interests), and a future (potential solutions). By Friday, we want to be about 80% solid on the story. Once we have the story, we can decide on the specific mission and goals for our project.
4. Creating the Map - Now after going over the "why," we're going to work together to create one map. You’ll each give your "immediate causes," "intermediate causes," and "root causes." We'll build this together. After break you’ll nominate connections.
5. Stories from the Map - We'll use the Causes handout that I gave you on Tuesday, to pull a story and other information from the map we create. How does our map relate to the five types of causes described in the handout? Who does this map empower to find a solution? What alliances does it foster? What solution does it suggest? In the polis, people fight over these causal stories all the time. We can criticize and think about "but what abouts...." all day. But we're in the polis too, so we need to figure out what causal story we believe in.
Homework due Friday, October 2nd
Read the handout on Interests that I'll give out in class