1. Bellwork In your notes, answer these two questions:
Do you agree with dictatorships?
Do you think it’s appropriate for groups to rise up against dictatorships?
LEAVE 5 LINES BETWEEN EACH ANSWER AND 5 LINES BEFORE YOU THEN CONTINUE WITH TODAY’S WORK
Project: Political Ideologies. School: Chalfonts Community College, Buckinghamshire. Date: September 2016

2. What will I learn today? Title: Dictatorships
LO: To investigate the nature of dictatorships
Knowledge:
To know and understand how dictatorships work
Skills:
To consider how and why uprisings occur in dictatorships
To reflect on whether these are ever justified

3. Homework
Watch the video clip about Fidel Castro and then answer these questions about Fidel and dictatorship:
Who was Fidel and what did he do for Cuba?
Do you think he was justified in causing an uprising against Batista? Explain your answer.
Fidel is referred to as a ‘dictator’ too, but he wanted to improve life for Cubans. Does this make dictatorship OK in this case?
Overall, do you think dictatorships are a good or bad thing? Explain your answer showing both sides of the argument.
– upload to SMH

4. What is a dictatorship?
A system of government which rests on a single person or group that is highly authoritarian and whose power is not limited by law.
Usually this means that the country or countries are governed without the consent or opinion of the people.
Defining dictatorship is notoriously problematic. The definitions above come from the Democracy Chronicles via

5. What is a dictatorship?
In your pair, you have been given an information sheet on a dictator.
Use the A4 person outline to show what you learn about this dictator. On the front, you should:
draw and colour the country’s flag
write the dictator’s name
dates of their power
Where they have/had power
On the back, write bullet point summaries about the dictator and what you learn about the dictator.
Challenge: do you think this was a good or bad dictator?
Challenge: can dictatorships ever be justified?
Note: there are only 4 dictator profiles, so there will be lots of people doing the same one. This will make the feedback quicker on the next slide as groups can just add to what previous groups presented and said

6. What is a dictatorship?
Share with the class what you learnt about your dictator.
Are there benefits of dictatorships?
What are the drawbacks of dictatorships?
Why might people want to rise up against a dictatorship?
Why might people want to stay as they are, under dictator rule?
Class discussion after student feedback

7. Uprising: an example
It is generally accepted that Syria has been under dictatorship rule, which has resulted in:
People not having confidence in the leader, President Assad. He is seen as weak by some because of his reserved personality.
Assad using his power to assert his wishes
The rich becoming richer and the poor poorer
This has lead to uprisings in Syria in order to attempt to overthrow Assad.
This is not the work of any one rebel group – there are many different groups trying to do this.
One of these groups is believed to be ISIS, and the USA, Britain and France have also joined the fight in order to target and reduce the threat of ISIS.

8. Uprising: an example
Do you think it was right for an uprising against Assad to occur?
Does it matter that there are lots of different groups in the uprising against Assad now?
Should the UK, USA and France have got involved?

9. What have I learn today?
Edit your answers from the start of the lesson to incorporate what you have learnt today.
Have your answers changed?
Can you add any key terms?
Can you refer to any specific examples now?

10. What have I learnt today?
Title: Dictatorships
LO: To investigate the nature of dictatorships
Knowledge:
To know and understand how dictatorships work
Skills:
To consider how and why uprisings occur in dictatorships
To reflect on whether these are ever justified