It has been a pleasure teaching the children about the importance of thinking before we make decisions. We have experienced the power of an informed debate! We have identified that judging before (pre) is a form of PRE-judice!
The debates take a simple format that I will be continuing to use with the Year 4 and 3 children through the rest of this term – have a go at home to prepare them for the opportunity!
- Put our opinions and preconceptions to the side until we have heard all the evidence and arguments.
- Identify arguments for and against the idea/question debated.
- Allow time for counter-arguments.
- Make an INFORMED decision about the question.
The slide show shows some examples of the children’s arguments quickly caught as they debate. My own favourite has been when discussing whether we should eat animals, with the argument going something like this:
Pupil a) We shouldn’t eat animals because they have feelings too.
Pupil b) But if we don’t eat them then there will be no farms and so the animals won’t even exist.
Pupil a) Better that than if they have a tortured life as a caged animal and then suffer pain as they are killed to be eaten.
Pupil b) What if we gave them a really lovely free range life for a certain amount of time and then ate them – so they have the opportunity to exist and be alive free from pain before we then, humanely kill and eat them?
You will see there were a range of other arguments shared around whether we should eat meat linking to the environmental impact, but most pleasing was the children’s ability to listen to each other and respond thoughtfully.
This culminated in evidencing the power of words. Children who had an opinion at the start, listened to reasons, and were able to change their opinion to an informed one: See B4 and After…The power of words!