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!) Sadly, I would just suggest taking the easy way out on this one. Politics can be a very touchy subject even for young adults. I would suggest to not have the open floor conversations/debates. Because most of the time no one is going to sway on their political views unless they experience something personal that may change their mind. I do not think the communication is a bad thing if the class can behave civilly and discuss their opinions then that is wonderful. But for this exact scenario if you were able to turn back the clock I would just avoid the discussion altogether. Maybe once the papers were turned in you could get an idea of the majority of the class and talk about differences. Maybe a teacher led discussion would be less unruly?