I really enjoyed participating in yesterday’s workshop. Katie Moore from the Constitutional Rights Foundation of Los Angeles, California came to give our teachers a workshop on how to implement their Deliberating in a Democracy initiative. This program aims to improve the teaching and learning of democratic principals and skills of civic deliberation. The program is funded by the US Department of Education and works in schools in eastern Europe and the USA.
I learned the difference among deliberation, debate, and discussion. Deliberation is listening to other viewpoints and opinions carefully and then for a person to make his/her own decision. Debate is trying to convince the other side and discussion is talking about an issue but not making a decision. Katie led us through a sample lesson and we deliberated the question, “Should our democracy permit hate speech?” which comes under the topic of Freedom of Expression.
I particularly liked two parts of the lesson procedures. The first is it forces students to first use their heads and concentrate on the facts and readings and not go directly to their emotions on controversial issues. Deliberation is about controlled controversy, and almost all of the topics are controversial. The other aspect is each side needs to “teach back” to the other side what they learned from listening to the other side’s arguments. The rules for deliberation also help young people control their emotions when involved in these discussions.
Katie has been to Serbia many times and they have a page on the Deliberation in a Democracy web site. I would like to thank her for including ISB in her visit and for the teachers who enthusiastically participated in the workshop. This will definitely benefit our students.
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