Archived: Election 2016: Diversity of Thought

This lesson booklet provides tools for teaching civil discourse and giving students the skills to turn their opinions into reasoned arguments. (middle and high school)

In this exercise, students learn to participate in reasoned and respectful discussions with each other, following ground rules that they create together. (all grades)

Find guidance on making school a place where every student feels welcome. (all grades)

This lesson invites students to co-develop a set of guidelines for speaking to each other with kindness and respect. (all grades)

This toolkit for “Polarized Classrooms” directs teachers to online resources on political ideology and partisanship.

Teaching controversial issues and topics can raise complex challenges even in the best of times. Educators and administrators are finding this year's presidential election particularly daunting. This program, from Harvard's Graduate School of Education, has developed a case study designed to help teachers, school and district leaders, parents, teacher educators, and middle and high school students have nuanced conversations about how to address the election in schools. The case raises important pedagogical, ethical, democratic, legal, and political considerations, and invites readers to reflect on them both on their own and in dialogue with others.

This essay from Harvard's Ed school considers "What Boundaries Should Be Placed on Student Civil Discourse?" and is adapted from No Citizen Left Behind by Meira Levinson.