We live in troubling, confusing times.
Large scale protests upholding the Indian tricolour, mass readings of the Preamble to the Indian Constitution in anti-government demonstrations, school students sending postcards to the Prime Minister supporting CAA as assignments, women-led occupations of public spaces demanding secularism : what’s happening, who is opposing what and why, who isn’t opposing and why? What questions do our students have about all of this? Do our Civic textbooks hold the key to these questions?
While we do not and cannot claim to have all the answers, we do know that the times demand we seek clarity, that the misinformation that clouds minds including those of the young, is addressed.
So what we propose is this: engaging students critically in an exercise that will enable them to seek the answers to these questions themselves. If not answers, students will at the very least have moved on to newer, different questions. Inspired by an MHS initiative conducted in late January this year, this engagement is loosely modelled along the lines of a debate.
How do we go about this?
We conduct an information session with thoroughly researched content and listed sources. We share the material with students.
Students will be given 7 – 10 days to do their research looking at various perspectives, starting from our material and moving further, using reliable sources of information that they will enlist and share with us on the day of the debate.
On the day of the debate/discussion, History for Peace representatives decide the ‘for’ and ‘against’ teams and proceed to moderate the debate.
The session concludes with a discussion on the topic among the ‘for’ and ‘against’ teams, the audience and the moderators.
Download the material here.