Professor Satoshi Yoshii’s Ethics in Business course targets first year students and makes them discuss current news and numerous economic problems occurring in the society. It aims to teach them the ability to make informed decisions based on ethics and newly possessed knowledge about the aforementioned problems.
What is ethics? Ethics is standards and rules of conduct for the majority of a society. To be more specific, it consists of laws, manners and unspoken rules of a society or a group. Some of it, i.e. laws, clearly state what is right and what is wrong, but the others – manners, unspoken rules and such – may be interpreted differently depending on the person.
Let’s discuss young voting turnout
Today’s topic was the voting turnout in youth, and all students were eager to share their opinions on this subject, as the problem of distancing young people from politics has escalated in recent years.
At the beginning, the Professor asked why young people don’t vote, to which his pupils replied with many interesting answers, such as, “Going to the ballot box is troublesome”, “Nothing will change with just one vote I cast”, or even, “I don’t know much about politics, so I’m not sure which candidate would be best”.
Upon hearing such answers, the Professor inquired further:
“So, it seems many young people are not interested in politics in the first place. What would we have to do to make them go vote?”.
The opinions varied. “We could impose a fine on people who don’t vote”, “Since everyone is using smartphones on a day basis, we could just enable voting by internet”, and “Someone should make a song about politics”. Professor Yoshii commented on every opinion, but was especially delighted with the idea of a song. He even stated that if an artist popular among young people decided to write one, he or she would definitely get them interested in politics.
An environment in which you can express yourself freely
In order to enable such an avid discussion with differing opinions, it is crucial to create an environment where every point of view will be heard and respected. During classes utilizing Active Learning methods at our University, the faculty members hear out and comment on every remark made by their pupils, which gives a clear signal to other participants in the class that they are welcomed to speak out. Today we could experience how the environment in which everyone can express themselves freely leads to more people speaking their minds, which in turn makes place for innovative ideas to appear – and that creates a virtuous circle of an in-depth, animated discussion.