By: Wouter van de Groep
While most children come away from watching Aladdin with a sense of awe and inspiration to find genies, it can easily send the message to children that occasional thievery and deceit is acceptable when one has few other options. This movie in fact even rewards a thief, Aladdin, for his continued crimes by giving him riches, power, and ultimately allowing him to fall into favor with a princess. While the premise of this movie is that Aladdin has a good heart, and that this is ultimately what allows him to undergo the journey into the genie’s cave in the first place, this distinction is something that clearly needs to be questioned.
As middle school students begin to develop their minds and are becoming ready for more complex modes of thinking, this is the perfect opportunity to bring up a more complex discussion. This conversation can allow students to better understand their values and what they perceive to be just. When properly utilized in a classroom setting this video may help show moral differences between students and help reconcile why these differences occur. When and if such differences between the moralities of students arises, no specific side should be encouraged more than another unless specifically drastic. In this way students will be given the opportunity to challenge their own personal views by the examples and propositions raised by other students. In the following video, the flaws of Aladdin will be clearly displayed in a format that will be understandable to younger students, and this can be used as a springboard to start a conversation regarding what a good person truly is… and ultimately allow your class to decide whether or not Aladdin is a good person. Furthermore, the lesson plan following the video may be useful in providing further ways to ensure productive and stimulating conversation.
Lesson Plan Day 3
Purpose: To introduce the fact that differing viewpoints exist within a classroom; to learn about morality
Keywords: acknowledgement, divergence
Introduction (30 minutes)
Purpose: To show students that not everyone maintains the same ideas of right versus wrong and good versus bad every student; to realize differences regarding viewpoints
Create a table on the board with 7 rows and 2 columns. Each row correlates to a question on the Day 3 Worksheet (under the resources tab). Tell students that today's lesson will dive into determining right versus wrong.
Hand them each a worksheet and give them 2 minutes to answer all 7 questions.
Then, have each person put a tally in the respective column for each question on the board to gauge the differing answers.
Discuss the reasons why the students chose the answers that they did and allow the classroom to open up to a deeper discussion than previous days.
Ask each to write a brief one pager answering the follow-up question from the worksheet.
Video Essay (10 minutes)
Purpose: to use Aladdin as an example of multiple arguments to strengthen or undermine a main argument
Before viewing, ensure the students have an idea of the plot of Aladdin.
View the third video essay: “Moral Implications of Aladdin”
Wrap Up (10 minutes)
Purpose: to gauge the understanding of the topic question regarding the morality in Aladdin and further understand why people make certain decisions
Discuss the topic of the video and further argue the question.
Have the students write a paragraph regarding why the possess the morals that they do and how it's important to understand the morals of others.
Homework
None!