How do democratic principles apply to the teaching profession? How can teachers help students develop the skills to address divergent views on controversial issues such as abortion, capital punishment, and LGBTQ2S+ rights? How far should we extend religious freedoms? How can we talk about the conflict between free speech and hate speech? How we discuss these issues in class? If we avoid them, what message do we send to students? If we open the debate, how do we facilitate respectful discussion?
Our Teaching Civil Liberties program facilitates free, interactive workshops that provide teachers and teacher candidates the tools to empower their students to think critically about and discuss issues for which there can be no perfect solution, and to actively seek out views that differ from their own.
Through CCLET’s interactive workshops, teachers and teacher candidates are encouraged to examine conflicts and controversies for which there can be no perfect solutions – and to actively seek out views that differ from their own. How do we address divergent views on issues such as abortion, capital punishment, LGBTQ rights, creationism and evolution? How far should we extend religious freedom? Can we talk about the conflict between free speech and hate speech? Do we discuss these issues in class or do we avoid them? If we avoid them, what message do we send to our students? If we open the debate, what risks to we take?
Through this process of thinking critically about the many sides of a question, workshop participants develop strategies to identify inequities and teach for social justice in their classrooms.
CCLET’s education interns have:
- Challenged students to think critically about rights and freedoms
- Learned new teaching skills to engage students of all ages in dynamic and though-provoking discussions
- Gained valuable teaching experience by speaking in classrooms across the Greater Toronto Area and beyond
- Designed teaching materials such as lesson plans, rubrics, web resources, video games and interactive online tools
- Attended professional development conferences focused on social justice and equity in education
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