Engagement in civil discourse occurring at LHS

Civil discourse, in today’s political climate? No, that can’t be possible! In a world where political polarization has been increasing the gap politically between liberals and conservatives in this country, the need for humans in society to be able to talk about difficult and controversial issues is now more important than ever.

Last month, my political science students were able to meet with John Snoad from the Cato Institute, which is based out of Washington, D.C. The Cato Institute is an independent political think tank in which their goal is to engage teachers and students in being able to handle a conversation on controversial issues where someone may have different political opinions.

I went down this past summer to a weeklong conference to learn about how to engage our students in controversial topics and I was intrigued by the work of this institute; I thought it would be great for our political science students to hear the same message. Thank you to John Snoad for making the trip to our small town school and talking about the importance of being able to have those tough conversations about controversial issues through civil discourse.

We are currently applying our knowledge of civil discourse to a simulation of the bill-making process in Congress. The first step to the project is students advocating for reform on an issue that they care about and present their information to a congressional committee (the class). The next step will be to vote on two topics to bring to the Senate and House floors for a civil debate on the issue, in which their objective is to pass two bills on two different issues in order for them to become laws, which the president of the United States (a.k.a. me) must into law.

While some of the topics are controversial, the students are able to engage in tough issues that are being debated throughout the country today in a civil manner, so if they interact with people who have differing opinions politically, they can have those conversations without hating the person for who they are. I look forward to students' presentations on these issues and having them implement the concept of civil discourse through this project.

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