Topical cases for teaching

One of the things that I find makes teaching easier is having relevant, topical case studies to use. So far this year there has been plenty of material to draw on.

A few weeks ago, we were discussing the subject of when, if ever, it is legitimate to disobey the state at the same time as the issue of student fees first became prominent. Unsurprisingly, we quickly got onto a discussion of whether civil disobedience is acceptable when protesting against student fees (I’m hoping I didn’t put too many ideas into students’ heads!).

The following week, we were discussing non-violent direct action the same week as there had been a protest at the full council meeting I had been in. There was lots to discuss about what works well and what doesn’t.

Now, our new topic is about what methods are used by terrorists, and what they are aiming to achieve from their terrorism. I anticipate plenty of scope to discuss the recent explosives on cargo planes from Yemen. There are lots of interesting topics, like whether the terrorists have achieved many of their aims without a bomb needing to go off, due to the media coverage, extra security measures and so on. Interestingly, I notice that few media reports are saying anything about the aims of the terrorists. I wonder whether that is because the terrorists have not made this clear, or because governments have put pressure on the media not to discuss motives in order to support counter-terrorism objectives.

Of course, it would better when teaching a module on terrorism to only have historical cases to draw on.