AAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!!

Do you ever wish that it were acceptable to take another human being by the shoulders and shake him/her until his/her teeth rattle? Do you ever want to say to someone, “That’s just irresponsible, so irresponsible as to be immoral?”

Sigh. I’m back to the fact/opinion essay. We cut it from the 10th grade curriculum today. I could live with that, though, because it’s being replaced with a speech to persuade. It can serve the same critical thinking element, so it’s fine with me. Here’s the rub. One of our younger, sweeter teachers said that she felt uncomfortable having them do speeches on controversial topics because just giving a speech in front of people is hard enough for some kids. One of our older teachers said, “That’s OK. I don’t even let them do gun control, abortion, capital punishment, any of those.”

Once upon a time, I restricted these, too. I wanted students to stretch a little further. In the last five or six years, though, I’ve discovered that they know nothing about these topics. These kids don’t read or watch the news. As a result, I lifted the restrictions. Last year, I was so sick of kids being completely clueless about how to come to an informed opinion, that I used a totally different approach. They wrote their thesis, and then I made them research the opposite side before they could research the one they’d chosen. They had to write a complete, detailed, researched outline with a works cited page (minimum of 5 sources). I taught them about logical fallacies and empty rhetoric, and since they were reading information that conflicted with their opinions, you had better believe they gleefully pointed out whenever their sources contained fallacies and rhetoric. Then they did the same thing for the side they originally chose. Suddenly, they were able to see all the flaws in their previous convictions, as well.

When they wrote the final paper, they could not change topics, but I allowed them to switch sides, if their thorough examination of the issue compelled them to do so. All three students who had originally written a thesis in support of the war in Iraq switched sides. A number of kids expressed frustration because the issues no longer seemed as black and white. It became difficult to be unequivocal on things.

I am damned proud of how that went. I’m doing it again this year with the speech. I tried to explain the value of this to my colleagues, and the older one said, “Well, some things are just too emotional. It’s not about facts.”

Excuse me? EXCUSE ME???? It’s not about facts? WTF? I desperately wanted to look at her and say, “And you think you’re qualified to vote, much less teach?” That is, of course, a socially unacceptable response.

She went on to say that abortion is a purely emotional issue, as are the issues of gun control and capital punishment. I will be the first to concede that there are emotional elements to these topics. Whether or not life begins at conception is a largely emotional determination. Reasonable, rational people can make arguments on both sides. Whether or not vengeance is a legitimate part of justice is an emotional call. Where to draw the line in regulating arms can be tricky, but there are facts involved in every one of these topics that cannot responsibly be ignored. There are arguments people present that do not stand up to scrutiny.

Last year, during this assignment, several kids were writing about abortion. I discovered, to my utter amazement, that not one—NOT ONE—of my sophomores had ever heard of a coat hanger or back ally abortion. They honestly thought that when abortion was illegal, no one had abortions. They were completely floored when I explained that abortions have been around for thousands of years. You should have seen the look on their faces as I calmly explained that, “back in the day,” women inserted foreign objects like coat hangers and knitting needles into their vaginas in hopes of either penetrating the cervix or traumatizing it to the point of inducing an abortion—often dying of massive infection or hemorrhaging in the process.

I don’t think that we can responsibly make any sort of policy decisions about abortion without considering this. That doesn’t mean we have to accept all abortion without restriction and without placing any sort of value judgment on it. After all, I still don’t know how anyone can definitively say that human life does not begin at conception. Nonetheless, we can’t ignore the gruesome reality of what happens when abortion is a criminal offense. Capital punishment is not cheaper than life imprisonment. It is not a deterrent. It is wrongfully inflicted and cannot be taken back. On the other hand, we have to have some way of dealing with those who commit heinous crimes and are clearly irredeemable. It would be reprehensible to make any sort of policy about the death penalty without considering these facts. More people die from gunshot wounds in the US than in any other industrialized nation. At the same time, one of the first things a dictator does to maintain power is remove citizens’ abilities to rebel by force—i.e., they restrict all firearms.

“Just because I feel this way” is not an acceptable basis for policy-making, and when we vote, we are affecting policy. This woman, the one who claims that facts don’t matter, votes! Her students will vote! And I’m gonna be stuck with their crack-pot, two-bit, fly-by-night decisions! THIS DRIVES ME NUTS!!!!!!!!! (You can’t see me right now, but I’m rending my garments, pulling at my own hair, and wailing loudly.)

I wish I could say that I feel better, now, but I don’t. I need a drink. Have a great weekend, all.