Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do presents a glimpse of what college education may be in the future. “Justice” is the most popular class on the Harvard campus. This 3-DVD set presents Micheal Sandel’s class in 12 hours. Sandel is an engaging professor. His dry humor and quick wit keep the lectures moving even when confronted by the mind-numbing philosophies of Kant and Bentham. Some of this performance centers on getting the students involved by using Jerry Springer techniques: challenging cases of cannibalism and suicide and surrogate mothers allows Sandel to indulge in audience interaction. I can see colleges and universities offering courses in this DVD format (perhaps available on the educational institution’s web site) in order to cut costs. Sandel also wrote a useful book to accompany the course. I enjoyed taking the course and highly recommend it. I’ve included a sample episode below. GRADE: A
I went to a small college where there were no big lecture halls so we had courses like this to save money. It really depended on extreme charisma on the part of the lecturer. If you can’t see the puzzlement or boredom on faces, it’s tough. And the guy I took Psychology 1 with had none at all.
Michael Sandel holds the 1000 students in his lecture hall in the palm of his hand, Patti. I was very impressed with his approach to teaching and plan to borrow some of his techniques for my much smaller classes. I also see this approach migrating to the online classes we offer.
This sounds a lot like a program that aired on PBS a decade ago or so, only that had lawyers and lawmakers discussing legal and moral issues. Don’t remember the name, but it was great.
JUSTICE was shown on some PBS stations, Rick. I’m impressed with Michael Sandel’s ability to engage 1000 students with some pretty esoteric teachings.
Off topic and by the way, I received the first season of HUNTER in the post today. Eager to see it. Thanks for the tip.
You’ll enjoy SEASON ONE of HUNTER, Rick. It’s the best one.
JUSTICE is still being shown on public stations…it’s gone national, actually, for the first time over the last six months. Syndicated by Boston-based American Public Television.
I’ve watched the whole 12 hours of JUSTICE, Todd, and it’s well worth viewing. I prefer the DVDs so I can watch the classes on my laptop.