Home | How It Works | Stats Login | Register         Case: Politically or Racially-Aware I believe in democracy. As a high school social sciences teacher, I strongly believe in democratic education and political awareness. I want my students to be aware of what is going on around them locally, nationally, and internationally. I require my students to keep up with news. Everything they learn from newspapers, magazines, and television becomes substance to use in my lessons. Before the presidential elections, I asked my students to watch all the debates, try to see the different perspectives, and how those perspectives may lead to different courses of action and to different implications for people. As part of this effort, I gave students a "persuasive writing" assignment. I gave them a list of topics from the debates, such as abortion, healthcare, affirmative action, and foreign policy. Students were to take a position on one of these issues and write a persuasive essay. When it was time for students to share their writings in class, things got out of hand. Every single topic we discussed along with the essays turned into a discussion of race. My Black and White students took opposite perspectives on every issue and during the discussions, they were not civil. I felt like my efforts for democratic education were not producing anything good. Should I change my activities? How come the political awareness I wanted develop in my students actually turned out to be racial awareness? Some guidance please! Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) I do not think that you should change your assignment. I, too, teach high school students, and I find that many of them have the same political beliefs of their parents simply because they think that they should, and I have found that they don't really know why they have the beliefs that they do because they do not know enough about the issues. However, as you describe, the political debate you wanted turned into a race war. Perhaps you should preface the discussion with ground rules. More than likely, too, your students weren't quite prepared to have the differences of opinion that they faced when students started sharing. In setting ground rules, I would also explain that everyone is entitled to their own opinions as long as they can support their opinions with evidence, and in your case, the evidence would be from the debates. Additionally, when students comment on other students' beliefs, they should be able to support their thoughts with evidence. I would also provide a time for reflection at the end of the discussion, and I would make students explain something that they hadn't thought of, as well as something that made them think (either agree or disagree). I think, too, you might consider having this discussion in a fish bowl setting where students are partnered, which would reduce the amount of students vocally participating at one time.