The Common Good in Times of Crisis

This mini-lesson is designed to be adaptable. You can use the activities in sequence or choose a selection best suited to your classroom. It includes:

• 4 activities
• Student-facing slides
• Recommended articles and videos for exploring this topic 

In March 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Eric Ward, a civil rights strategist and director of the Western States Center, wrote:

The truth of our interconnectedness has never been more apparent. ¹

Share this quote with your students, and ask them to reflect on the following questions, first in small groups and then as a full class:

• How would you define the term interconnected?
• How have you experienced the “truth of our interconnectedness” over the past year?

As a class, look at the headlines on the front page of a reputable news source (such as the AP or NPR), and then discuss together:

• How do the stories in the news reflect our interconnectedness?
• What are some other examples of how people are interconnected in the world today?

Note: You can also use the Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, Text-to-World teaching strategy to guide your students to analyze a news story and explore further connections.

• 1Eric K. Ward, “Who Are We, America?,” Southern Poverty Law Center, March 22, 2020.

Share with your students that some philosophers have proposed that since individuals’ well-beings are often interconnected, we should focus on finding collective solutions to problems in society. This “common good approach” is found in multiple philosophical traditions around the world.

Share the following two explanations of the term common good with your students:

From Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel:

The common good is about how we live together in community. It’s about the ethical ideals we strive for together, the benefits and burdens we share, the sacrifices we make for one another. It’s about the lessons we learn from one another about how to live a good and decent life. ¹

From the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University:

Appeals to the common good urge us to view ourselves as members of the same community, reflecting on broad questions concerning the kind of society we want to become and how we are to achieve that society. While respecting and valuing the freedom of individuals to pursue their own goals, the common-good approach challenges us also to recognize and further those goals we share in common. ²

Then, ask your students to develop their own definition of the term common good. Students can use both writing and illustrations as part of their definition.

• 1Michael Sandel quoted in Thomas Friedman, “Finding the ‘Common Good’ in a Pandemic,” New York Times, March 24, 2020.
• 2Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre,Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer, “Thinking Ethically,” Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

For this activity, choose one crisis to focus on, such as climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, economic uncertainty, or global migration.

Begin by sharing a brief overview of the issue with your students or by asking your students to collectively brainstorm what they already know about this issue. Then, ask your students to use Project Zero’s 3 Ys thinking routine to help them reflect on how the issue you are examining impacts both individuals and communities:

• Why does this issue matter to me?
• Why does this issue matter to my community?
• Why does this issue matter to the world?
   

Then, write the following questions on your board where students can see them:

• What actions can I take to help others related to this issue?
• What actions can other individuals in my community take?
• What actions can leaders or politicians take?

Ask students to share their answers to the questions. You can assign one student to be a designated note-taker who writes their classmate’s responses on the board, or you can give students sticky notes and allow them to write their own responses and post them on the board under the corresponding question. Students can choose to focus on just one question or answer multiple.

Once students have finished sharing, use the following questions to guide a reflective discussion:

• What patterns do you notice between the responses? Were there any responses that surprised you? Why?
• Why might the actions that elected leaders take be different from other individuals? How does the responsibility to act change when someone has a leadership role?
• How could the actions listed here help to promote the common good? 

Ask your students to reflect on the following prompts in their journals or on an exit card:

• I came in thinking . . .
  (What did you think about this issue before?)
• Now I think . . .
  (How has your thinking changed or deepened?)
• Next I want to . . .
  (What actions can you take in the future to promote the common good around this issue?)