adiflesher's blog

Mind and Brain Interest Committee - Brookline High School

The following is a lesson plan for high school students about morality and the brain.  The lesson can be taught in the context of a larger curriculum about the brain or can stand alone.  The focus of the lesson is to give the students insight into moral decision making and to raise questions about the ways they make moral decisions.

I’ve tried to keep the lesson itself relatively simple and geared towards big questions.  Since many of these questions remain the topic of scholarly debate I’ve included some links detailing some of this dialogue. 

Please add comments on how you think this lesson can be improved or fleshed out. I hope to use this lesson in the upcoming year in High Schools around the city of Philadelphia.

I am still in the process of adding parts to the lesson, fleshing it out and adding the appropriate footnotes.

Morality:  Pull the lever or push the fat guy and other dilemmas that will have you scratching your brain about the nature of morality.   

Goals

I am currently working on developing resources for learning about the mind. I believe that one of the best ways to help people grow and be happy is to get them to closely examine the way that their mind (and brain) work.

My work is influenced by my time working in informal education at a leadership oriented summer camp. I believe that education must be experiential to be effective.

I am also influenced by my time living and working on a Buddhist retreat center. I am fascinated by the intersection between the subjective investigation undertaken in meditation and the subjective/objective investigation of science.