8.17.2009

Machiavelli's The Prince (and the Princess)

In my world history class, we're studying the Italian Renaissance. How perfect is that?

We've been discussing some of the new ideas that cropped up during that time, and Machiavelli is featured heavily in the textbook. I think that's a weird choice for ninth grade, but ... whatever.

Anyway, I gave a quiz today with this sentence:

Machiavelli's The Prince is about how to get and keep ______________________.

[The correct answer, for those of you who, like me, never even heard of Machiavelli in any classroom, including college, is POLITICAL POWER.]

However, I teach freshmen and, even though they were allowed to use their notes on the quiz, some of them had already lost them and had to improvise. TWO (2) of my geniuses wrote that

Machiavelli's The Prince is about how to get and keep women .

Probably that would be true ... in the Disney version.

1 comment:

teachin' said...

Perhaps they believe that having women = having power? You can't get a chick if you're not powerful, right? (Though that probably does not relate to the political side of Machiavelli.)

 

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