Harry Boyte’s article “Teaching Democratice Values”

Our very own Harry Boyte’s article in The Hill is well worth reading.   Here is a teaser:

“In response to the wave of student protests this fall about racial discrimination and other issues on America’s campuses, some propose speech codes and other measures to turn campuses into safe spaces.  Others react with disgust. “This isn’t the behavior of people who are capable of weighing opposing ideas,” writes Glenn Reynolds in USA Today after protesters disrupted a free speech forum at Yale. “Spoiled children shouldn’t vote.”  Reynolds proposes raising the voting age to 25.

What critics and supporters of students have in common in our therapeutic age is little respect for students’ own agency, their potential to work through differences. Twenty five years of experience with a youth civic education initiative called Public Achievement have taught me an opposite lesson: young people are hungry for opportunities to learn the skills and concepts to handle conflicts and make constructive change.”  Harry C. Boyte

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/260821-teaching-democratic-values

 

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