Preparing Aitchisonians as Ethical and Moral Leaders

As senior school students at Aitchison grow up to become adults, many will become leaders in their fields; some through achievement, some via inheritance. How is Aitchison preparing these students to address fundamental questions: their place in and obligation to society, their path in life and the personal missions they select, and the capacity and motivation to critically assess their life stories. 

With the Aitchison Dialectic, the School is aiming to inculcate in students: 

  1. An ability to think critically and learn from others
  2. Explore and develop a personal ethics and measures of a life well lived
  3. To conceive their own measure of responsibility from the personal to the societal
  4. Tolerance of disagreement

The First Module: Ethics

The first module will cover the following topics in Ethics over three days across successive weeks in October:

  1. What is a Just Society? And, Who Decides?
  2. The sources of Ethics: Philosophy, Religion, Psychology
  3. Who is a Moral Person?

Teaching Methodology

To develop critical thinking, students must practice thinking critically. In other words, what we are seeking to develop requires direct engagement by the students rather than lectures from on high. The topics above will therefore be addressed in a discussion format in groups of 12 students with two moderators to set the stage, ask the right questions and guide the discussion. Students will be given reading materials (from 10 to 20 pages for each day). 

Moderators

The moderators are Old Boys from the Aitchison Metacognition Team:  

 

Nadeem Babar Class of 1981 Columbia & Stanford
Omar Khayyam Shaikh Class of 1982 Columbia
Salman Akram Raja Class of 1984 Cambridge & Harvard
Salman Akhtar Class of 1984 MIT
Arif Saeed Class of 1985 Oxford
Omer Zafarullah Class of 1989 Yale
Ali Ahsan Class of 1994 Harvard
Kamil Chima Class of 2011 Harvard