One day out of the school week, instead of the usual text book curriculum, government/economics teacher Dr. Steven Drouin has students talk about various real world controversial topics.

Drouin‘s idea is to help students with public speaking.

“I was disappointed in students’ inability to talk to each other,” Drouin said. “I thought this would help them to voice their own opinion and come to their own conclusions about important topics.”

Drouin was also concerned about students not knowing about global news events.

“It’s a government class, and I think it is important to learn about issues they are going to face in the real world when they are voters,” Drouin said. “For example, the text book doesn’t offer information about the issues of abortion. I think since this class is supposed to be about democracy, we should at least give space to learn about these issues.”

The first controversial topic was about the freedom of religion law in the state of Arizona. The freedom of religion bill essentially allows business owners to deny potential customers based on their sexual orientation if it’s for religious reasons.

Several students thought it went well and enjoyed the debate.

Senior Chris Mahar felt it was more an economic issue rather than a religious one.

“I feel that it’s okay for private business owners to accept the customers they want because it’s private, but I don’t think public businesses should be able to do that,” Mahar said.

Senior Dreshon Moore understood both sides of the argument.

“I understand why some religions are against homosexuality. But it’s messed up to persecute people based on their sexuality.”

Students had to debate both opposing and supporting sides of the bill. Drouin handed out documents with information, quotes, and even political cartoons with perspectives from both sides.

Drouin also thought the debates went well in a majority of his classes.

“I think the debates went fairly well. People usually go into the arguments with a set perspective, but I think a lot of students came out of it with a more even mind set, which is great” Drouin said.

Senior Douglas Palmer felt the debate was a great idea, too.

“We we’re put into groups we didn’t agree with and, yet, we put aside our own beliefs to see things from a different perspective,” Palmer said. “I think the weekly controversial topics are a great idea, and I think Dr. Drouin’s class is the only reason I’m aware of all the things going on in the world.”

Drouin is still unsure about the next few topics for the weekly sessions, but is confident that he will find something to challenge the students.

“I’m going to have the students vote on the next topic they want to debate about and we’ll go from
there,” Drouin said.