You know, that's the most memorable exercise I ever had in a social
studies class, was to be forced to take the opposite side of an issue
I believed in. Did it change my ideas, no, but it did teach me to be
more tolerant of others' beliefs, just as you said Govt. Teacher.

On 7/03/09, Govt. Teacher wrote:
> While this is an amusing exercise for the teacher, I'm not really
> sure what it accomplishes for the students. What I like to do is
> demonstrate the process of law making by doing a Senate/House
> simulation. I pick a topic that I know the class is fairly evenly
> split on (based on a pre-activity discussion or survey) & tell the
> students they'll be having a debate with two sides. Then I have them
> volunteer which side they want to argue, and after they're split into
> two teams I assign them to argue the exact opposite side. They hate
> this, but forcing them to analyze the opposite perspective & then
> argue it causes them to at least learn how to look at the other side
> of the issue (even if they totally disagree with it.) And some of
> them might actually learn a little empathy or tolerance (notice I
> said might).
>
>

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