Think about the news from the world: student uprisings for human rights, abortion clinic bombings, eco-terrorist attacks... What are the right answers? What's wrong? What's always right, always wrong? What's sometimes - and at what times - right? You're going to pursue careers, vote in elections, choose whether to raise a kind of family. How are you going to figure this stuff out?

Lots of times people figure out where they stand on sticky issues any way they can. We grapple, chew on, ponder, and get the gears spinning. Sometimes they also spout opinions based on bias and prejudice, not beliefs and convictions.

Wouldn't it be good to have a clear way to think about these brain bending questions?

Some people have figured out one way and they call it using a "Case Study." Basically this means using one specific example (a "case") and then looking at it very closely (studying it).

In doing Ewe 2, you will use the Case Study approach to figure out where you stand on partial and whole cloning of humans. "Whoa," you say, "Who says I care about this subject?" Well, let's get serious: 1) You're in school and learning's the name of that game. 2) What are you gonna say when your loving grand-daughter wants them to freeze your bean and bring you back for round two?

Also, with this Case Study approach, you'll really be learning two main things: What you think about cloning, but probably more importantly, how you think. This way, you're "learning to learn." As Bob Marley said, "None but ourselves can free our minds." So let's look up from our lives, skip the apathy, blow-off thoughtless biases, and decide that we can make a decision.

So where do we go?

Well, first off, thinking isn't easy. So let's get set. Experts in all fields use something called visualization (some call it day dreaming). The Olympic diver plays and replays in her mind each step, twist, bend and, flex of the dives. The surgeon rolls the mental film before an operation. The 17 year old lead guitarist sits in a dark room running scales and riffs on the fretboard of his mind. So you need to get the mental picture for where you're going to be taking your brain. Second, like any muscle, our brains work better when they get to do some training before the big event. So before getting into the really tough questions involved in the whole cloning issue, we'll take a practice session using another subject. Then let's get into these two pieces, visualizing and practicing.

Visualizing what happens in a Case Study

Identifying the Main Issues

Let's look at this with common sense. "Complex" means "a whole made up of parts." If we're going to study a complex topic, doesn't it make sense to figure out what these other parts are? So we are going to look at the Issues. One nice part about Case Studies is that a case is really just a fancy word for a story. So you'll get to read a story that involves the complex topic. Then, looking at what's described in the story / case, answer the question: What are the important parts that make up this complex topic?

What are the Players' Perspectives

Now that you have an idea of what makes up the topic, it helps to figure out the ideas behind the issues. Instead of only looking at ideas, Case Studies use people / characters to represent the parts of the complex topic. Aren't you starting to like this ideas of using Case Study approach instead of just cracking your brain? Instead of just sitting there thinking about human rights, abortion, terrorism, etc. you'll think about the people involved in the case / story and figure out what their perspective is (where they are coming from / what they believe, value, think is most important, etc.). Your challenge (and sometimes it's hard) is to look at all the people involved in the story / case. Hint: sometimes you won't see all the people, sometimes outside force like peer pressure / social biases affect the story in more hidden ways. So your job here is to link up a perspective with the main issues: make up statements for all the perspectives you can think of that come into the story / case: "So-and-so believes..."

Developing a Base of Knowledge

You've done a lot of work, haven't you? You've taken a complex topics and broken it down into some key issues. Then you've looked at the people who care about the issues and found out what their perspectives are. If you were going to come up with an opinion about which of these perspectives (or combination of them) is "right," what would you still need to do? How about find out more about the topic yourself? Are you going to let some silly story or character in a case hand you your opinion? What about freeing ourselves from mental slavery? Someone once said that knowledge will set you free. If we learn more about this complex topic (the reasons behind the perspectives, see what even more people have to say about it), won't we be in a better position to make an intelligent decision about what we believe?

So now it's time to learn more about the complex topic ourselves, to go beyond the story of the case we're studying. The cool thing about nowadays is that you don't have to only "crack the books," but you can also surf the Net. A lot of folks have done some pretty amazing things to give you the power of technology to supercharge your learning. All the students working on this project will create a database of information of the topics so ignorance is no excuse. Your brain will be bursting with new ideas and information.

Put Your Ideas into Action

If you're supposed to figure out where you stand on a complex topic, is it enough to uncover the issues, understand people's perspectives, and learn heaps about the topic? What's missing here? Finding out tons of information is cool, but it doesn't do anything? How do we put this learning into action? Well, what do you think should be done? We're finally back to the big questions: what's right? what's wrong? when is it right and wrong? always or only in certain situations? So you'll need to come up with your answer: your action plan that shows us the best answer to the tough question.

Predicting the Consequences

You're done right? You've got the answer. You understand the ins-and-outs of this hairy mess of a topic. Time to relax, huh? Well, there's one more thing a Case Study wants you to do. Maybe you're heard the saying, "The best laid plans of Mice and Men always turn awry." This is an older fashioned way to say, "Oh yeah, Mr. Know-it-all?" You see, complex topics are complex because they are... complex. If they were easy to solve, they wouldn't be complex, people wouldn't have a bunch of opinions about it.

Let's think for a moment about some "best laid plans." Aerosol sprays seemed like a pretty good thing when they were invented. 'Course no one had heard of CFC's or the ozone layer back then... Cranking out cars on the assembly line seemed like a miracle cure for all the folks who wanted to buy cars and get around. Have you driven in rush hour lately? Television brought entertainment right into a family's living room. How much have you talked to dear old Dad lately? The big idea here, then is to take an educated guess at what might be the consequences if people followed through on your action plan?

Did you Get all this Stuff?

We hope you have a better idea what this Case Study business is all about now. It's not the only way to think about complex topics, but using the stories and characters probably makes it easier that trying to figure it out all on your own. Also, including each of these steps will help you cover your bases and make sure you don't slip into the chains of mental slavery or sloppy thinking.

If you feel comfortable with the Case Study approach try answering these questions:

1. Why does it help to identify the issues?
2. In terms of understanding perspectives, why is it easier to use a Case Study than it is to read a bunch of newspapers articles?
3. Why can't you just use what you know about a subject to make your opinion? Why do you need to dig up more information?
4. How should the action plan relate to the issues and perspectives?
5. We're not fortune cookies or palm readers, why bother trying to figure out possible consequences?

If you're happy with your answers to these questions, then you probably have a good vision of where you're going to take your brain as it gets into the land of Case Studies. But before taking on the topic of Cloning, let's get some training in by working out this Case Study approach with a shorter practice session on an even "meatier" subject.