Today’s society can be very opinionated, and teaching children how to respect the opinions of others that don’t align with their own is critical. A new class is set to be added to WS for next school year that would teach students how to voice their opinions about current controversial events, political, social, etc topics and also learn how to be tolerant of opinions that differ from their own. The administration’s inspiration for creating this class at WS came from the fact that other schools already have the class. They asked WS teacher and football coach Jason Eldredge to teach the new course.
This type of class is a totally new experience for him, as he primarily teachers Spanish. But Eldredge has plenty of experience dealing with heightened emotions and tense students with his time spent coaching the WS football team.
“Its going to be a challenge for me…but I’m used to that…What I’m worried about is that sensitive material can raise heightened emotional state. I think one of the reasons why they chose me is ill be able to manage behaviors and keep things cool,” said Eldredge.
He plans to make the class very interactive, personalized for each student, and current events-based.
“It’s a Socratic setup. I want to have daily journals where the kids are keeping their own log of how they feel about things and things they see happening around them as well as what they feel and how they feel about the issues that we raise in class…we’ll have a lot of research based ideas that are going to occur. I would want everyone to be able to speak their mind,” said Eldredge. He also believes that focusing solely on what’s happening today isn’t enough. He wants to ensure that his students are aware of the past as well in order to have a fuller, deeper understanding of where this country has been, the conflicts it has faced, and what was learned as a result.
“Has human society encountered these kinds of issues before that we know of? I want kids to be aware of what we’ve endured historically,” said Eldredge.
His overall goal is to teach his students and make them more enlightened citizens. “I want kids to be not ignorant and keeping a running vocabulary,” said Eldredge. Mainly, Eldredge wants to have an impact on how kids interact with others who disagree with them and teach them how to handle that.
“I am hopeful that someone will leave the course with a better understanding of another person’s point of view so they not so intolerant of why someone has a different view than they do,” said Eldredge.