STATING THE PROBLEM

This posting is a continuation of a series of postings in which a unit of study is being developed, in real time.  The topic of the unit is foreign trade and how that trade has affected job availability in the US.  The first lesson of that unit was presented in the last posting.  This posting will proceed with the second lesson.  The whole unit is being written to “cover” two weeks of instruction and is slated to be the last unit of a semester long government class for high school seniors.

          A contention that this writer has not yet mentioned is that this unit is not written for all seniors around the country.  It is written for students who because of their situation or the situation of their parents, community, or state would find the content of the unit relevant. 

Preferably, such students might live in areas where manufacturing jobs have disappeared to other countries or because a company or companies situated in that area has outsourced their manufacturing needs to other country(ies).  This relevancy factor should be kept in mind as the reader thinks of the appropriateness of the material for a given school.  With that proviso, the reader is invited to read on.

          At the end of the first lesson, students were asked to determine if a list of statements were true or false and for each give a reason why they determined it to be true or false.  The statements were to reflect information students were to attain researching the passage of a law.  Here is the direction they were given:

Teacher informs students that he/she wants the students to investigate the passage of a law.  They are to not only look at what the law aimed to do, but the reasons it was first suggested and then passed … Their assignment is to find out why the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 [was] passed by Congress and what was its major provisions.  [In addition, the t]eacher singles out two or three students to report to the class how workers and/or unions viewed this law.

The review of this assignment is where the substantive content of this second lesson begins, but first there is the on-going assignment by the “news group” (a pre-assigned group of students who pick up the responsibility to prepare a newsletter with factual, contextual information – a daily chore). 

LESSON ON INSIGHTS II (combination of original third and seventh insights)

Objectives:          

* Given the information presented in this lesson regarding the results of foreign trade policy of the US in the years – even decades – after World War II, the student will be able to define the ensuing detrimental effects as offending the federalist value of equality in which the student will cite which attributes of the value is offended.

* Given an appropriate written prompt, students will be able to cite the major effects of post-World War II foreign policy provisions on Americans.  These will include advancement of technologies, broader markets for US products, export or outsourcing of US manufacturing jobs, and the introduction of cheaper and more diverse consumer products in US markets.  An appropriate prompt can be:  how did “Marshall Plan” thinking affect the welfare of Americans, particularly the nation’s workers?[1]

Lesson steps:

Pre-lesson.  Teacher hands out to news group students the second batch of factoids.  They are:

·        There has been a reduction in average labor needed to produce a car from .1 in 1999 to .07 in 2014.  This reflects the manufacturing processes have turned to the use of machines and robots to do what workers did in the past, at least, in the auto industry.  Similar developments can be found in the machine and chemical industries where job availability have grown slowly and, in some cases, has declined in recent years.[2]

·        China has an increasing demand for high-tech civil aviation, machine tools, integrated circuits, and other high-tech goods and will reach $600bn by 2020.  This is a fraction (1/2) of the current (2015) trade deficit with China.  But meaningfully increasing exports to China, calls on the US to ease high-tech trade restrictions in relation to trade with China.  The fear is the stealing of intellectual property by Chinese companies.[3]

1.     Teacher distributes “newsletter” and students review it as the teacher takes roll and handles other administrative concerns. (seven minutes)

2.     Teacher briefly reviews the content of the newsletter with students to assure there is general understanding of its content.  The idea of trade restrictions will be addressed during the unit, but the teacher can introduce the idea by pointing out that governmental policy can restrict trade.  The example of tariffs – which seniors should have been exposed to in a previous course, American history – can be offered in broad terms to illustrate the effects of trade restrictions. (five minutes)

3.     The teacher draws student attention to the last assignment of the previous lesson in which students determined if each of a list of seven statements were true or false and why.  This will take a discussion format and, in general, the accepted lessons of these statements are that US foreign policy after World War II became very liberal (free of restraints) as the policy attempted to avoid the punitive or restrictive policies after World War I.  Some think that such policy biases in the earlier times led to the Second World War.  Teacher points out that the overall thinking supporting more liberal policy is referred to by some as Marshall Plan thinking. (twenty minutes)

4.     Teacher further makes the point that currently there is NAFTA, WTO, and TPP (which was addressed in the first lesson) carries out this bias in favor of liberal trade to the current day, but there seems to be some push-back with the election of Donald Trump to the presidency.  Whether there will be more or less restrained trade in the future is an open question.  (three minutes)

5.     The teacher asks the class:  So, what is the problem with foreign trade?  How does it affect equality?  Students by this time should have been, in an earlier unit, “taught” how federalist thought regards equality.  It is summarily described as regulated condition,[4] and the maldistribution associated with liberalized trade policy – a purer market orientation – offends this definition of equality in that that trade has left many workers in sub-standard economic conditions if one judges those conditions by how American workers lived in the 1960s.  The factoids of the first lesson further supports this contention.  There will be further support later in the unit.  In any event, the effects of trade policy on labor has affected their opportunities to the degree one can argue many no longer have equal opportunity. (five minutes)

6.     The teacher shifts gear a bit by asking students to see how foreign people and foreign governments might view this relatively newer – more liberal – trade perspective of the US.  Did they in other countries see it as a new opportunity to buy American products or as a chance to strengthen their own production capacity and, in turn, be able to sell to Americans cheaper products?  If the former, this would benefit the US economy, if the latter, it could potentially hurt the US economy if not off-set with increased exports to those countries.  How does the lesson’s newsletter address this?  Teacher gives students the opportunity to respond.  Teacher jots down on the board student ideas in shorten form.  (eight minutes)

7.     Teacher asks students to think of this line of questioning overnight and be ready to speak to it more fully during the next lesson when they will be defining some key ideas (concepts) associated with foreign trade.  Students, in the remaining time, can begin jotting down their thoughts.  (two minutes)

This ends the lesson for the second day of the unit.  To this point, the reader might have noticed the lessons are limited to fifty minutes.  In the developer’s experience, he usually had fifty-five-minute class periods.  This allocation of time – the usual fifty-five-minute class periods – gives students, after the instructional period ends, five minutes to get to their next class (a total of sixty minutes).  With a fifty-minute limit, this allows for some leeway in these plans.

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[1] This lesson will not provide completely all the instruction needed to meet this objective.  It will partially provide that instruction.  For example, subsequent instruction will define Marshall Plan thinking.

[2] Wang Wen, “A US-China Trade War Would Cause Huge Damage and Benefit Nobody,” Financial Times, March 27, 2017, accessed September 22, 2017, https://www.ft.com/content/3b49cd2a-10ad-11e7-b030-768954394623 .  It is not known what the reference to .1 or .07 means.  One can interpret the numbers, though, as indicating that a lot less labor is needed to produce cars per unit of production.

[3] Ibid.  Students are going to address the meaning of the terms “trade deficit” and “intellectual property.”  Their product should indicate the meanings of these terms.  They will be addressed in lesson three of the unit.

[4] Regulated condition relies on market mechanism to set prices, wages and other benefits, but sees a strong role for government in both regulating markets – so that the large corporations and other businesses are prohibited from taking unfair advantage due to their abundance of assets and resources – or providing other laws such as minimum wage, public health facilities, subsidized insurance programs (Medicare), or outright individual subsidies (Medicaid).  Proponents argue that their sense of equality is truer to the aim of equal opportunity.  See, for example, previous posting, "Working Hard and Being Me," 9/16/16.