Just Because You Are Right Doesn't Mean That I Am Wrong

During Poetry Cafe, a student, a Congolese refugee, slowly and deliberately shared a quote by Dat Bao (2017, 26), “just because you are right doesn’t mean I am wrong...you just haven’t seen life from my side.” It was an emotional and moving experience for the audience of students and staff. She was normally meek when speaking English, but not today. Today, her voice projected to the back of the library and she spoke with emotion and fervor. She was a fresh reminder of the need for a global community.

How can we teach students to successfully navigate the world of today and tomorrow? Critical to empathetic discussion and decision making is for students to “prove it” through the analysis of opposing viewpoints, counterarguments, and well-balanced and comprehensive research. They must understand there may be counterarguments and more than one valid defense, with rational evidence, for any perspective, topic, issue, or theory.

In our younger days, my friends and I loved to debate. We enjoyed everything about the conversations: the energy, the sharp wit and banter, the appreciation of others’ informed rationale. But over the years, with society becoming more rigid in its thinking, the wealth of information proliferating on the Internet, and the bias of reporting and social media mushrooming, I’ve grown disenchanted. I find the tendency among so many to lose civility and to rage, intimidate, or bully those who are not like-minded thinkers exhausting. The enjoyment of a healthy discussion and debate has been lost. As a school librarian and information literacy specialist, what should I be doing to counter this? This reflection is a powerful reminder for the need to teach digital literacies and global citizenship in an intentional and thoughtful manner. It is the responsibility of parents, classroom teachers, and school librarians to help build a society of mutual respect; an honoring of differing opinions based on varied perspectives, experiences, and a robust understanding of the issues at hand.

How do we guide students’ passion into a well-researched argument? Emotions are powerful, but a well-researched thought is empowering. Feelings can easily cloud decision making and thinking. Opinions hidden within truth or half-truths can obscure judgment. As the mother in the movie adaptation of The Giver frequently said, a “precision of language” is needed. We must sometimes ignore false claims, not be swayed by opinions, beliefs, or emotions, or by the suppositions and biased conclusions of others. We must develop the skills and endurance necessary to find and understand the multiple levels fact, opinion, and scientific truth to an issue.

Ethical argumentation requires intentional, direct instruction, training, and practice. In order to equip a learner and citizen to be thoughtful in exposition, consistent and frequent practice, is needed for developing justifiable claims based on relevant and tangible evidence, sifting through opinions, collecting data, and comparing conflicting reports and information.

An attentive educator may guide students toward developing an openness to varying viewpoints in order to avoid the rut of a perspective that might have been held for years or even generations. Our goal as educators is to develop ethical, empathetic citizens who use scientific argumentation and comprehensive understanding of the evidence, ideas, and opinions to make sense of the world. It is our responsibility as educators to encourage and guide our students toward the skills necessary for navigating a democratic society. Begin today to develop a foundation with Mary Ratzer’s article on argument and personal efficacy and Debbie Abilock's column on teaching counterclaims and rebuttals. Follow up with Tasha Bergson-Michelson’s rich piece co-written with her student, Arush Gupta, on news from multiple perspectives to understand how one school scaffolds instruction and gain a nugget of inspiration to transfer to your own students and school.

Work Cited

Bao, Dat. Poetry for Education: Classroom Ideas That Inspire Creative Thinking. Xlibris, 2017. https://books.google.com/books?id=OPExDwAAQBAJ&dq=Poetry+for+Education:+Classroom+Ideas+That+Inspire+Creative+Thinking&source=gbs_navlinks_s.