Some teachers say, using a discrepant event lesson is something like sticking your head in the mouth of the dragon (see photo above).

Professor William C. Bruce teaches social science methods and education that is multicultural at the University of Texas at Tyler.  He has taught, using discrepant event inquiry, since 1975.  He has authored and co-authored hundreds of articles, eight textbooks, and two discrepant event lesson DVD films.

Professor Bruce will talk to you in detail, via podcasts, about teaching with discrepant events.  Click on: Podcasts.

Speaking engagements or workshops:

Phone: (903) 566-5892

Professor Bruce

Discrepant events change your life

Discrepant Events: A Lifeless Body

By Jean K. Bruce

A lifeless body

A lifeless dinosaur fell from the sky and landed on the hood of your car.  A lifeless dinosaur instantly fires up the mind.  True?  A body tells a tale, whether the body is lifeless or alive, whether it’s a dino or a human.  To tell the tale we must who, what, and where it.

HELP

What would you do if a body landed on the hood of your car?  Would you freeze?   Would fear and surprise keep you seated in your car?  At some point, you climb from your car, and call for help.

Speculations

Speculations about what might have happened to cause the body to fall on your car budge you out of shock to reflect.  What exactly happened when the body fell?  You consider the possibilities of what might cause any body to fall from the sky.  In your mind, you move through ideas and views.  The ideas and views bring one thought provoking thought after another.

Thinking tree

The evidence paths take you to your mind’s stepladder.  Your stepladder takes you to your thinking tree.  You climb the thinking tree.  Did you climb just any ole thinking tree?

Do you hang the following sign for your brain?  Do NOT disturb!

Whether you realize it or not, whether you want to pursue answers to the questions surrounding the body, or not, your mind pesters you to: stop until the storm passes, or stop, look, listen, and search for a better thinking tree.

Boogie

You’ve heard the saying: Life is not about hiding from the storm.  Life's about discovering how to boogie (dance) in the rain!  Difficulties and questions in our lives make us face Life.  The way we respond to difficulties and questions influences our humanity, and our very existence.

Cognitive domain

Discovering how to boogie in the rain is about mind movements performed to the tunes we select.  Either we evade and think impracticably, or we inquire, calculate, communicate, express, build, and allow our minds to climb and dance.  Positive reactions to a difficulty, such as a lifeless body on the hood of your car, or unanswered questions, benefit from your mind’s scientific, principled, and precise passage to higher levels of the cognitive domain.

Obsess on using logic and reason

The ability to live in the reality humans need, to solve Life’s problems, and to remain true to yourself, even if all else appears to be changing, or it does change, hinges on your life as a accurate problem solver.  When you join people for cooperative problem solving, they change your life, and, you change their lives.  When humans share their obsession to use logic and reason to find answers, even if it’s just for a flicker of time, those humans can transport you, and, you can transport them.  Discrepant event inquiry thinking (your best thinking tree) makes time stand still,  propels time, and protects us from being the lifeless body.

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