Safety Versus Security: We Want to Talk with You!

We invite you to participate in a wonderful learning conversation with our ninth grade honors classes on February 3, 2011. After studying the world of dystopian fiction through classics such as Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, George Orwell’s 1984 and the modern response, Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, our students will engage in an intense discussion as their final project. We are inviting you to participate to help our students examine how these works play an enormous part in their world today through such relevant issues as Homeland Security, government censorship, information leaks, and safety versus security, to name just a few.

Our students will participate in a fishbowl discussion with live blogging and we will Ustream out the fishbowl discussion live so that you can hear the in-class discussion while participating in the live blogging.

This is what we need from you:

•Sign up on the wiki. You’ll notice that we’re asking you to indicate which side of the security versus privacy fence you lean toward. We know this is not a black-and-white issue, but in the attempt to get diverse voices with differing opinions into our discussion, we’re going to try to get folks on both “sides” of that fence. So please do your best to put yourself on one “side” or the other for this discussion to help us do that.

We are looking for at least 3-4 participants per class period. The classes meet for 59 minutes. You can certainly sign up for more than one class if you are interested.

Period 2: 8:25-9:24 am MST

Period 3: 9:29-10:30 am MST

Period 4: 10:35- 11:34 am MST

Period 5: 12:14-1:12 pm MST

•You do not have to have read all the texts to be a participant, but a quick review of the texts and a familiarization of the issues would be helpful to keep up with our kids.

Our goal is not necessarily a debate, but a learning conversation for all parties involved. We don't want a winning group and a losing group, but a healthy discussion where we all walk away having learned something new. Thanks for your interest! If this is not your cup of tea, please consider passing this along to someone who might be interested.