 |
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 think the way you approach the "sharing" portion of the assignment can set the tone for the outcome. I think the most important thing to point out when dealing with these controversial issues are the FACTS. When facts have been stated, then informed decisions/opinions can be made. The way I would approach this assignment is to have people from each side of the issue state a fact supporting their side one at at time and have them on the board for the class to see. After students have gone back and forth discussing FACTS, then students can better make an informed decision. In order to tackle the racial issue, I would try to do my own research finding political beliefs of famous people, athletes, other teachers (if they are comfortable), etc. that openly share their political views regardless of their race. When students realize that many DIFFERENT people have different informed opinions they will feel more comfortable choosing a side regardless of their race. It would be important to make sure you do not find evidence to support the students' racial perspectives. |
||
Rating
|
||||||||||||||||||