How Do I Love Thee: Patterning

What do you call a cow with no legs?

The answer: Ground Beef!

Based on the previous joke, you might be able to guess the answer to another joke. What do yo call a cow with two legs?

Lean beef! (Sorry no picture this time!)

The opening of the Chapter Six in Sparks of Genius by Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein reminded me of these corny jokes my father used to tell. The fact is though, once you notice a pattern, you can learn and predict a great deal from it. How we dress for the day based on how the weather looks outside is a result of patterns. Knowing how your boss will react to a new problem is a result of learning from patterns. Learning a new way to multiply by nines or twelves is the result of patterns. Patterns are vital to our everyday life and they are a key to learning from the world around us.

Often time in Social Studies courses we focus too much on history as the underlying pattern in the concept. What can we learn from the past? Often times, we overlook other patterns that exist that connect the difficult and more abstract concepts, like the one I chose for this project: rights. We can easily describe rights and many governments have a written list of basic rights and/or rights guaranteed by the government. But how can you show a pattern in rights? One way to "see" a world-wide pattern is through the use of maps.

Below is a map showing the different forms of government throughout world.

via chartsbin.com

On the map, we see all types of governments from Full Presidential Republics (like the United States) to military dictatorships (like Libya, Niger, Mauritania, and Burma) to one party states (like China). Not only can you think about the patterns in where the different types of government are found and link it to the history of each country and even more specifically the history of exploration and colonization,, you can also look for how these forms of governments reveal a link to a pattern in different rights.

Take freedom of speech for example. If you were to walk into any high school classroom and ask for the class to name the American Bill of Rights, the most popular response would be freedom of speech, just one portion of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Teenagers love to exercise this right and can easily relate to it. So lets compare freedom of speech and press to types of government. Below is a map of the World Press Freedom Index:


via chartsbin.com 
(Click the Key button to lower or raise the map's key/legend.)

Right away, you might notice that Burma and Libya, two of the military dictatorships listed previously, are ranked the worst for freedom of press ("Very serious situation" on the map's key).  One might also notice that Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy, is ranked this poorly as well.

But does the pattern always hold true?  Where would you expect the United States to fall?  Did you expect it to have the best rating and the most freedom of press?  Were you surprised that we were only given a satisfactory rating?  And you would expect countries with Presidential Republics, a system we have in the U.S., to have similar ratings of at least a satisfactory situation.  This does not seem to hold true, especially when you look at South American and African countries with Presidential Republics.  While patterns can help us link important ideas, we must know their limitations.   They are not always the rule but can provide important insights.

We often associate rights with freedom.  The more rights you have, the more freedom you have.  (Another pattern.)  Now let us compare what we have learned so far to a map of "Freedom in the World" which looks at political rights and civil liberties:

via chartsbin.com

Here we see a map that reflects patterns that we see in history and we see in the current events throughout the world:  the United States, Canada, and most of Europe and South America are considered free.  Areas that are rich in a history of conflict are not free, such as many countries in Africa and Asia.  Now let's look at the same data in a different form:

Now we see that the countries that are free or partly free are considered electoral democracies, or countries that have governments founded on the principle that elected officials represent the people. By this definition, the electoral democracies would be the presidential republics, presidential-parliamentary systems, parliamentary republics, and constitutional monarchies we saw in the first map. Thus we can see a link but we also see exceptions to the pattern: not all presidential and parliamentary systems provide their citizens with rights.

Finally one more connection to make and one more pattern to bring to light. Are rights connected to peace? If you lack rights, are you more likely to have conflict in your country? Compare this map to the map above on freedom:


via chartsbin.com

You see again that Africa and Asia, areas of the world that are known for civil war, conflict, and terrorism, are the same regions with a low or very low peace index.  You can of course, look country by country and compare.  You could even look at each country's individual history and link it to it's peace index rating.

Patterns are everywhere.  Understanding the patterns and the connections can help us understand the turmoil that we see in the world today.  You can even choose to look for the patterns that show us that the glass is indeed half-full and see the positive patterns that are happening around the world.  The important thing is that we open our eyes, start seeing those connections, and find those patterns!

Citations and Resources:

1. Ground Beef picture courtesy of: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/2432588
2. Systems of Government by Country Map: ChartsBin.com, http://chartsbin.com/view/6kx.
3. World Press Freedom Index: ChartsBin.com, http://chartsbin.com/view/1329
4. Freedom in the World Map: ChartsBin.com, http://chartsbin.com/view/1250.
5. Global Peace Index Map, ChartsBin.com, http://chartsbin.com/view/1529