The Silver Lining of Presidential Debates
If you’re like me you are ready to be done with the debates, town halls, commercials, and rhetoric but I would like to offer a silver lining. We can talk about how the candidates talk to each other and what it means about them.
I don’t want to advocate for one party over the other, but it is impossible to watch the Republican debates and think, “This is how people should be talking to each other.” In my homeroom we practice using words to build each other up instead of tearing them down. I had a situation this week where a student went to a play that featured another student and the attendee didn’t have complementary things to say about the play. We stopped what we were doing right then and there to address the fact that as a homeroom we need to say things that build up not tear down.
There was in interesting discussion that cropped up during a Sanders-Clinton debate where Sanders was talking and Clinton broke in and Sanders told her “Excuse me I’m talking” and some people thought it was paternalistic. I don’t necessarily believe it was, but it was a great opportunity to talk about bias and the lens through which we perceive the world.
I’ve demonstrated two silver linings to the debates, what are yours with regard to social emotional learning?