Daily Kos: Using politics to teach my sociology classes

I teach sociology and criminology classes these days, and man, is it a lot of fun. For example, here's my day today:

In my criminology class, the discussion of social disorganization as a cause of crime led to the discussion of how to fix it - namely, investing in the inner-city infrastructure and creating more jobs, bringing in businesses to provide jobs, goods and services, and a police presence to deter criminal behavior and make businesses feel safe enough to do business there. But all that costs money, I pointed out. How do we get the money? The unanimous answer: Tax the rich people. I pointed out that we have a little constitutional problem there in California - the 2/3 rule. My students then said "Maybe we need a constitutional convention." I asked them who might be against using the tax money to help the poor, and an older black woman went off on Mittens for about five minutes, ranting about his complete cluelessness when it comes to how things really are in the inner city.

In the juvenile delinquency class, we got on the topic of "crime norms," and how those actions that we, as a society, don't define as criminal simply aren't considered crimes, even if they hurt people. A student asked "Like what happened in 2008? Is that why we aren't arresting the bankers, even though Iceland did it??"

The theory class dug deep into the idea of alternate realities and how hard it is to talk to or communicate with someone whose idea of reality is not the same as yours. Mitt came up again as someone who is so totally insulated from the middle- and working-class reality that he might as well live on Mars. The debate was mentioned, specifically the ridiculous tax cuts he was offering the middle class (on investment income and capital gains, remember?). One of my sharp-as-a-tack kids said "Yeah, and how many middle class people have any investment income or capital gains? None! Does he even realize that??"

And in my social psych class, we talked about the identity career and rites of passage that lead to status passages. And sure enough, the debate came up again - this time in terms of how men who have retired tend to try to run their wives' lives because their whole identity is wrapped up in being managers. And someone once again brought up Mr. Romney.

As you can see, they may be from the inner city, but my students are not dumb or ill-informed. And I am really pleased that I can talk politics and teach my classes at the same time. Just sayin'.

Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/18/1146781/-Using-politics-to-teach-my-sociology-classes

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