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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!) I think that with a lot of political issues, as sad as it is, students tend to side with their parents or other adults that they have heard talking without forming opinions of their own. They regurgitate information mindlessly without having any evidence to back up their opinions- race included. I think that as a teacher, having them argue and have a variety of opinions is good, something you always want- but you should require them to back it up. Try having the discussion again and say, "feel free to express your opinion on any point, everyone is entitled to it, but make the point without race being a factor, and see if it still makes sense to you or your classmates." I think a lot of times, students use race as something to fall back on and make their point when that really is the most simple and ignorant way to think. |
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