An imaginative slant on learning...
 
The Great Debate Open in new window | Printer Friendly page Email this page to a friend or colleague
What is it about?
 
 
Twist engaged Year 10 students at Dame Alice Owen's School in a workshop to explore what makes young people empowered or disempowered. The group discussed whether a person's background, family circumstances or their personal character and attitude are more significant.
 
A group of 'Pioneer Students' went on visits to talk to young people from a wide range of organisations and environments. Some (such as boys at Eton College) seemed obviously empowered, while others (such as those in prison) were obviously not, but the students came back with many unexpected answers. 
 
 
 
 The students also visited: 
  • Young entrepreneurs from Bangladeshi backgrounds in Tower Hamlets
  • A teenage pregnancy and sexual health unit in Southwark
  • An organisation that supports black boys excluded from school
  • An enterprise and development centre mainly catering for Muslim young women 
 
 
They engaged with people they would not normally encounter and were challenged to reassess their assumptions and prejudices. Back at school they led a series of debates across the entire year group on topics of their choosing, such as:
  • 'Is positive discrimination necessary to give disadvantaged young people equal opportunities?'
  • 'Do men control women's empowerment?'
  • 'Should conditions for prisoners be better than they could expect in normal life?'
  • These fed into the Great Debate on the motion 'Young people's empowerment is in their own hands?'  
What are the benefits?
 
Meeting people from such different backgrounds and experiences enabled the youngsters to make informed opinions about what can give young people control over their own lives. The workshop helped them put their own personal experience into context and to test their own sense of responsibility as active citizens.
 
 
 
Feedback from the participants
 
"I learned that problems can't always be solved as simply as I thought and that simple arguments become complex due to lots of views."
 
"I now know more about debating and politics, and how to argue my own points of view in a non-threatening way."
 
"An excellent workshop." Robert Pepper, Deputy Head
 
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