Right vs. Right

A look at History Teacher Greg Feldmeth's Contemporary Ethical Issues class

Part 1 of our Library Links series. This series explores the link between Poly's advanced curriculum and the Poly libraries.

Most of us can predict what we would do if faced with a choice between "right" and "wrong." In Greg Feldmeth's Contemporary Ethical Issues seminar, however, Poly students grapple with what Feldmeth calls "the gray area between 'right' and 'right.'"

Feldmeth created the course in 2003 with support from alumnus Clifford S. Heinz '34. "I wanted to help students develop an ethical toolbox to deal with tough choices, both societal and personal," Feldmeth explains. "These might be big issues like affirmative action, torture, or capital punishment; or they might be personal day-to-day situations. Either way, the answers don't necessarily come easily. Students spend the semester wrestling with complex issues like mercy versus justice or truth versus loyalty."

In Feldmeth's class students read the newspaper each week and write brief ethical analyses of issues. Frequent guest speakers reflect with students on the ethical dilemmas that occur in industries such as business, politics, professional sports, and journalism. The culmination of the course is a paper in which students must not only demonstrate comprehensive topical research, but also develop an original, persuasive position on one of these challenging subjects.

"This is where the library becomes a critical resource," says Feldmeth. "It's in the library, and with the librarians, that students comb through their sources, learning to discern what is fact and what is opinion within these opposing viewpoints. We rely on the library to supply a thoughtful collection that supports this level of investigation, in a variety of media. And the librarians are our partners in teaching students to evaluate the flood of available information. In the end, the purpose is to not to teach students what to think, but how to think.