Universal Values: International Intervention?

John-Paul, of Man of Errors blog and a teacher in Wellington, wrote this in March of a discussion in his high school class.

Today we looked at a newspaper article about the New Zealand SAS in Kabul, and at the end I asked them if they thought we should be fighting in Afghanistan. It was an interesting discussion. Most believed we should be in Afghanistan, and some of those supporters thought we should be there because of what the Taliban had done, and wanted to carry on doing.

I wanted to know if they believed there were such things as universal values and that other countries should intervene if they saw those values being broken. On this they were less sure and moved on to the idea that we should only be involved if a group does something to us first. One kid mentioned 9-11, but the rest of the class felt that this was done to America, and not to New Zealand. What about the idea that if we help America, then one day America might help us? We ran out of time for that question.

I like it when teachers teach kids to think rather than what to think.

US-NZ Military History in 1940's.