Monday, February 5 - AM Fluency

We had a lively discussion today, at times even a bit heated. Why? We were discussing politics. 

To get started, each student described the political system of their native country: branches of government, political parties, public perception of the government, etc. We learned from each student about the governments of Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil. Of all of these, Saudi Arabia was different from the rest: it has a hereditary monarchy. 

We then began reading an article entitled “Differences between Democrats vs. Republicans.” We didn’t get far. The topic: the Covid vaccine, specifically democrat versus republican approaches to the vaccine. Camila had strong objections to the democrat approach to the vaccine. I thought she misunderstood that approach. I tried to clarify. In the end, we couldn’t even agree on the facts involved in this issue.

But I’m not giving up; I’m going to try again tomorrow. My goal: to have a civil conversation on a political issue and to discover where exactly the point of difference is. In order to do that, both sides must accept what is fact and what is not fact.