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 don't think the activities should be changed, when it comes to politics things can get heated. I think it's a great idea to allow the kids to speak their minds and then you can turn it into a learning opportunity. Maybe take the opinions from each side and find facts either proving their validity or debunking them. Race is always a huge topic and if controlled chaos can be attained then by all means, turn it into a lesson. People usually tend to believe that democrats are followed primarily by black people and republicans are followed by white. These students have had these ideas hounded into their minds and then your lesson was the opportunity for them to speak what they've heard. They may not even base their opinions on facts but on he said she said.