"Don't discuss politics, teens and sexuality, or religion."
This is the advice for teenagers we give our kids just before their first dates. After all, new relationships are tricky enough. Why bring up topics that may raise an argument?
Public Education Issues
This also seems to be the public school policy many communities adopt when it comes to what they allow in school. To promote tolerance, they argue, we need to steer conversation away from issues that divide us. To ensure safety in school, we need to limit what they can say and how they can express their beliefs at school.
So in the end, responding to a world in which lawsuits abound and violence erupts without warning, many schools have decided that "zero tolerance" means "zero discussion" of controversial topics. But is this a good idea? After all, as Rousseau wrote in 1876, "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."
Common-Ground Thinking
First Amendment scholars say there is a better way. In his book, "Finding Common Ground," author Charles Haynes and his co-author, Oliver Thomas, encourage school communities to engage in "common ground thinking" when resolving their differences. We all have more to gain when we allow everyone a voice and work to guard everyone's rights.
The world is changing. Our children must learn to live with viewpoints and beliefs they may not understand or share. It's our job as adults to create schools that prepare them to get along in this new world. We can't do it by squelching their First Amendment rights. (It might be time to brush up on them, because if you're like most Americans, you've forgotten some of them.) Lately, I've been teaching all five rights to my children, for very good reason.
You see, their first dates have led to a second, and a third, and ... well, you see where this is going. Eventually, relationships need to deepen if they are to survive. To do this we need to tackle tough topics like politics and religion (although their dad wants them to avoid talk of sex forever).
I've seen sparks fly as my daughters, now young adults, learn to iron out their differences with the men they love. Sometimes the best they can do is agree to disagree. Yet I know this struggle builds rock-solid foundations for a future based on mutual respect and tolerance of differences.
Isn't that what we want for all our children? We must make schools safe places to discuss difficult issues face-to-face. We need to put First Amendment principles into action. We need to model common-ground thinking, where democracy works not because people agree, but because they have learned to live together, despite their deepest differences.
Linda Wacyk is a former EduGuide editor from Grand Ledge, Michigan.