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Street Law / Newsroom / Street Law Staff Travel to Peru to Train New Program Sites
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Kurt Waters (Fairfax, VA) and others learn to folk dance, Peruvian style.
September 28, 2011 |
After six years of success with Deliberating in a Democracy in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, Street Law, Inc., the Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago, and the Constitutional Rights Foundation took on a new challenge with the Deliberating in a Democracy in the Americas (DDA) project. This phase of the project, which is launching during the 2011–2012 school year, connects classrooms in California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Virginia with classrooms in Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru to engage students in deliberations about public policy issues.
Two international conferences were held over the summer to bring together participating teachers from around the globe to learn about the program and the deliberation technique and to introduce them to each other—especially their partner teacher, with whom they will be collaborating over the course of the project.
Street Law staff recently returned from Peru, where they joined forces with Asociación Educritica to organize and lead a bilingual conference for participating teachers from Montgomery County, MD; Fairfax County, VA; Denver, CO; Greensboro, NC; Lima, Peru; and Quito and Guayaquil, Ecuador.
The conference’s primary goal was to teach the 95 participants about the deliberation process and best practices for using it in their classrooms. Deliberations are structured discussions that encourage students to think critically and develop their own opinions about controversial issues, while ultimately finding common ground with the other side of the argument. Throughout the current school year, teacher teams (one U.S. teacher paired with a teacher from Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, or Peru) will discuss and compare the outcomes of the international deliberations with their classes using videoconferencing and other technology tools to connect the students.
The successful experience in Peru helped lay a foundation for lively, informed international discussions about important political issues in classrooms around the globe. Throughout the school year, teachers will participate in professional development; conduct deliberations in their classrooms; exchange opinions, ideas, and information partner teacher; conduct videoconferences; and participate on the blog and community forums on www.deliberating.org.
The geographic expansion of Deliberating in a Democracy means an expansion of the project website! All teachers (you don't have to be participating in Deliberating in a Democracy) can access numerous free resources on the site. Lesson plans on democracy and controversial issues like public demonstration, cyberbullying, free trade, and juvenile justice are available for download in multiple languages.
Slideshow: Street Law in Peru, August 2011
Source: (Reproduced with permission)
Deliberating in a Democracy
Topic: Civic & Law-Related Education
Topic: Democracy/Human Rights
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