It was the second day of class and I was presenting material on ethnocentrism and cultural imperialism. I introduced a video clip of “Arabian Nights,” the title song from Disney’s Aladdin, by arguing that the image of Arabia in that song was consistent with Pat Roberson’s argument that Islam is not a religion.

After I showed the Aladdin film clip, a student disagreed with me.

My argument focused on the line “It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.” In my reading of the text, I took “it’s barbaric” to be a reference to Arabia. The student argued that “it’s barbaric” was a reference to the heat mentioned in the previous line.

A lively discussion followed in which we talked about the song’s lyrics as well as other evidence we could consult to interpret the song’s meaning (e.g. watching the entire film to see how Arabia is portrayed). At one point, a student mentioned that, in once scene, the guards were chasing Aladdin swinging their swords at him. Although this scene clearly shows individuals behaving violently, we considered whether the guards were acting this way because they were Arabs, Muslims, or guards simply doing their jobs.

At the conclusion of the discussion, some might expect an answer to the question “Who was right?” However, that question is really irrelevant. A better question is “What did students learn?”

Not only did students come to a better understanding of ethnocentrism and cultural imperialism, but their critical thinking skills improved as we considered different points of view while interpreting the evidence used to support various suppositions. They learned skills concerning how to conduct a scholarly discussion based on evidence where people can disagree without being disagreeable. They learned that—like me—they have something to contribute to the course. And they learned that their points of view will be respected.

As a result of this discussion, we did not have time to complete my entire planned lesson. Yet, I believe that students learned far more from this discussion than they could have learned from anything I had planned.

The rest of the course will be better because one student spoke up and disagreed.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD