Fishbowl Discussions for Political Dialogue

Working with the Choices Program at Brown University, Zupin and a team of social studies teachers in Indiana found that "fishbowls" are a particularly effective strategy for keeping the peace during a controversial political discussion. A group of five to seven students sit in an inner circle (the fishbowl) deliberating an essential question while the rest of the class observes in a wider circle around them. Then the students switch positions. The format encourages students to "listen to hear...

 Tension Facilitates Change

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the ...

 The Bored at Work Network (BWN)

Global capitalism has produced hundreds of millions of bored office workers who sit in front of computers forwarding emails and surfing the Web. These alienated white-collar professionals spend half their day sharing media with their friends, inadvertently creating the Bored at Work Network (BWN). A by-product of alienated labor, the BWN has become the largest alternative to the corporate media. Activists, artists, and hackers can reach millions of people through the BWN, successfully distri...

 Beware Temporal Coupling

When people first sit down to design and architecture or write a program, things tend to be linear. That's the way most people think--do this and then always do that. But thinking this way leads to temporal coupling: coupling in time. Method A must always be called before method B; only one report can be run at a time; you must wait for the screen to redraw before the button click is received. Tick must happen before tock.