Last week, our lesson centered around the Medici family of Renaissance Italy. Consequently we also spent some time discussing the great Niccolo Machiavelli and his book The Prince. I had a lot of fun with this lesson, as I studied The Prince in college and I also got to show the kids some of my pictures from Florence. The kids seemed to understand that Machiavelli's main philosophy was that a ruler must do whatever it takes to maintain power and ignore questions of right and wrong. However, they were confused by the assertion that "It may be answered that one should wish to be both [feared and loved], but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved." Luckily, I had a chance to demonstrate the principle.
A girl dropped her pencil and started to crawl under the desk to pick it up. I asked her to please wait, as I was in the middle of explaining a project. She continued anyway.
"You have detention," I said.
She stopped.
I then explained to the students that when I asked nicely, the girl didn't listen to me. But when I appealed to her fear of detention, she did what I wanted. Ergo, it is better to be feared than loved.
P.S., I didn't really give her detention.
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