Puzzle

People are not black boxes; they can explain how they arrived at their conclusions. And, even when they arrive at the same conclusion, they can explain the different approaches they took.

     On the Teaching Channel (teachingchannel.org), kindergarten teacher Donella Oleston showed how she positioned two green squares, two yellow squares, and six white squares in different locations on two boards that each had ten squares. Then, she asked students to tell:
     1. What do you see?
     2. What is the same?
     3. What is different?
In that way, her students learned to explain their answers and to show each other there were different ways to think about a problem.

     I just came across a real life puzzle that older students could discuss in a similar manner.

     When two teams are playing for a championship, in anticipation that either team could win, manufacturers print T-shirts celebrating the victory of both teams. What happens to the T-shirts boasting about the victory of what was the losing team? Often they are bundled up with used clothing and sent to Africa. Now, African countries are trying to develop their own clothing industries which cannot compete with cheap imports. When I began listing the following factors involved in this situation, I realized it would give students a wonderful opportunity to explain what they noticed and what solutions they would suggest, in other words, experience with critical thinking.

Situation

1. For African countries to achieve greater economic growth, they need to diversify beyond producing raw materials (agricultural commodities and minerals for domestic use and export).

2. Both clothing manufacturers and seamstresses offer Africa an avenue for economic diversification into the production of higher-priced goods. Enabling women to provide revenue from sewing also enhances their value to the family and, in cases where men have died from disease and in war, sewing can keep children from dying from starvation.

3. Prices for African-produced clothing are too high to compete with unwanted, used, and Chinese clothing imports.

4. African countries, such as Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, and South Sudan, plan to raise tariffs to make clothing imports more expensive than locally produced clothes.

5. Africans who sell clothing imports protest raising tariffs, because they would lose their livelihoods.

6. The United States, which now gives favorable terms to some African imports, is being urged to retaliate against Africa's higher tariffs on clothing imports by canceling these favorable trade terms.

The U.S. Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association of 40 used clothing exporters claim high African tariffs would put 40,000 sorters and packers out of work and send more clothes to U.S. landfills. Since the U.S. also uses favorable trade deals to pressure African countries to make democratic reforms, it would lose this leverage if African countries were more concerned about fostering local industry than exporting raw materials to the U.S.

7. African leaders see the dignity of their people undermined when their countries are used as a dumping ground, not only for clothing, but also for old cars, buses, airplanes, expired drugs, medical equipment, computers, and electronic equipment.

What solutions can students suggest?