Wednesday, October 2. 2013

Today's schedule is B-AG-A-D-C

B Block Social Studies 10 -  Today is your Map, Geography, and Canadian Physiographic Regions unit final. You have as much time in today's class to complete the test as necessary but it should take no more than 45-50 minutes. If you came prepared I am certain that you will do fine. When you're done the test we'll review 4000 years of "human history" in 25 minutes...strap on your seat belts family! We are doing this to get us up to speed on the early 19th Century in Canada.

A Block Law 9/10 - Today we are back in the library so that you may continue your work on the Clue Us In crime scene investigation project. Please remember that the library has books on forensic investigation and I have books on crime scene investigation as well. Use these resources to aid you in the development of your project. Remember you need to create a crime...replicate the crime scene...investigate the crime as if you were an R.C.M.P. officer...and prepare a dossier file to hand over to Crown Counsel so that they may prosecute the case. Good Luck.

D Block Law 12 - Today is your introductory unit final test in Law. Since you had a few days to prepare I am certain that you will do extra well on this test. You'll have as much time as you need for the test however it should only take 45-50 minutes to complete. When you're done I'll crack open the question box and we'll go through your questions that you wanted answered about law.

C Block Criminology 12 -  Because we didn't get to it yesterday, to better understand the people that commit heinous acts of murder, we'll also review what a "psychopath" is. Too often people throw the term psycho around without really understanding what it means so we'll look at Dr. Robert Hare's PCL-R (Psychopathy Checklist Revised). The diagnosis "Psychopath" is closely related to Antisocial Personality Disorder in the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th Edition). We'll watch the recreation of the 1961 Stanley Milgram experiment on "Obedience to Authority".  From ABC News "Basic Instinct: The Science of Evil"

In the experiment, conducted at Yale University over a period of months in 1961, an authority figure -- "the experimenter" -- dressed in a white lab coat and instructed participants to administer what they believed were increasingly painful electric shocks to another person. Although no one was actually receiving shocks, the participants heard a man screaming in pain and protest, eventually pleading to be released from the experiment. When the subjects questioned the experimenter about what was happening, they were told they must continue. And continue they did: Two-thirds of Milgram's participants delivered shocks as they heard cries of pain, signs of heart trouble, and then finally -- and most frightening -- nothing at all. 

So if we are studying violence and we categorize violence as "evil" then shouldn't we understand what makes people do "evil" things? The ABC Primetime News team recreated Milgram's experiment and we'll watch it today.