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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!)
Like many others have said, I would have students meet before hand to discuss an outline of their topics and arguements. If the classroom has a safe environment then there should be policy of how discussions will take place. There should be the race card discussed and date brought up to defend the facts. |
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Rating
The suggested solution is respectful of the individual (student) |
Yes
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The suggested solution is relevant to the case |
Yes
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The suggested solution is reasonable (easy) for the teacher to implement |
No
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The suggested solution is likely to solve the problem/issue |
No
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The suggested solution is original |
Yes
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Comments: Needs a lot more elaboration in this solution. |
Rated On: October 18, 2014 2:37 pm |
Rated By: TuBuJy |
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