One of my student’s dads volunteered to represent the Loyalist side in our recent Skype debate. His article published in http://www.coastalmonroe.com/index.html summarizes his anticipations to our debate. This is some great thinking. I am honored to have had him share in our activity.  But, most importantly that he had the opportunity to share in an educational experience with his son.

Simon Says:

In The Creation Of Demons Our

Weakness Persists

Critical thinking and open, thoughtful debate seem to have fallen by the wayside. That’s why I’m looking forward to a challenge from my son Kirby’s middle school class to speak in support of the Loyalist’s side in a U.S. Revolutionary War debate.

The idea of some adults addressing one side of the issue as a challenge to 14-year-olds arose because of technology: I have access to Skype, a camera attached to my computer, so we can beam our faces to the middle school and vice versa. We can then hear and see each other over the Internet, thus having a “virtual” give and take. Like a town hall discussion of the future, more or less.

Getting involved in this program didn’t take much. They had trouble hooking up with another school, and I said I could Skype with them, their teacher stepped forward, and we set it up.

I volunteered out of interest and civic duty, and wanting to see how 14-year-olds think, speak and analyze, but found quickly there was another reason to get involved: Forcing yourself to see the other side of an issue.

In your yammering world of today, we don’t take the time to read through the other side’s positions, and take on their perspective. This entails core change on your part. You must reject a belief system and adopt another.

This jumped out at me because we’ve been selected to defend the Loyalists. For all of us raised on U.S. history books, it’s the insurgents who were the heroes and on the right side. They were the revolutionaries, pushing for freedom from the King of England, and the creation of an independent country. Now, as we were about to Skype, our side had to defend the King.

What did the Loyalists believe? They wanted a strong, unified England. The colonies were dependent for trade and vulnerable from the sea without protection from the British fleet. The crown’s debt came partially from defending the colonies in the French and Indian War.

Though that’s a quick summary of a full page of reasons the colonies remained indebted to England for the help they received on various fronts, it was enough for me to consider how little those sides of the issues were raised when I was studying that period of U.S. History in middle school. Or maybe I just don’t remember that side because the “good” side was our side. We were seeking to break away, and the Boston Tea Party was a great idea, and Paul Revere was a heroic figure in protecting the citizens from treacherous British troops.

It is said that the victors write history. But there’s also a full page of reasons that those who were defeated could commit to paper in support of their cause.

Kirby is pumped about our upcoming battle. He believes they have powerful arguments to defend their positions, assertions that are stronger than ours.

I have to take off my cap of long-held beliefs, and question what I’ve been taught, so I can advance the other side. This is harder. Still, it is proving to be quite fascinating, and an exercise others might want to try on for size.

At first, you’re disconcerted. All these years, you believe in one strong unchangeable perspective, that our revolutionaries held all the cards. Then, you read some additional materials, open your mind, and you start thinking, “Hmmmm, there was validity to the other side, too.”

When powerful opposing views clash, wars can start. It’s a destructive way to solve problems or iron out differences, but it does happen, as history teaches us.

What I’m hoping this exercise teaches my team and Kirby’s is the willingness to reach out and grasp where the other side is coming from. It’s too easy and destructive in the long run to establish your positions and never change them. Life ebbs and flows, circumstances change.

History is written. We can’t go back and change that. It’s written by flawed humans, never with full facts in hand. One man’s history is another man’s lies.

One can only hope as the 21st century unfolds further that we continue to seek out the other side rather than demonizing them. For it’s in the creation of demons that our weakness persists.

There will be enemies, but we don’t need to make them. There’s a big difference.

A great alternative to using Twitter in the classroom is Edmodo. Edmodo is a private social platform for students and teachers to share ideas, files, events and even assignments. We used it this week as a way to facilitate class discussion. We “tweeted” about the Battle of Bunker Hill, leadership qualities of General George Washington, and what it means to have a universal character (Gen. Washington is described this way.)

I like this tool better then twitter for its ability to allow me to create separate space for each of my classes. Students enjoy having their own class section and looking back and reading other class tweets or conversations.