Have you ever experienced a class in which the instructor does the following? The students are forced into two groups. Each group is given the task of presenting an argument based on the material the entire class has been covering for a period of time. The catch is that each of the groups will be completely for or comletely against the topic at hand. They will, in other words, be presenting two extreme sides of an argument covering a topic. Have you ever experienced this?
I certainly have. Most of the time it was fun and at least somewhat informative. I remember doing this in grade school, high school, college, and even graduate school. What I find particularly interesting about the setup is that the students may be of one extreme opinion and be forced (by virtue of the exercise) to come up with logical, psychological and/or emotional reasons why the side they are against (perhaps with their entire beings) has some merit.
Often times the value of an education is given in these exact terms. The students will be presented with all sorts of knowledge and many competing arguments during their time in school and will come out the other end having formed thier own opinions on the basis of all the knowledge available at that moment. It would be difficult to not see the value of such an exercise.
This “internal struggle” of identifying with the opinions and positions of another person, idea, or movement is a valuable exercise and is arguably one of the greatest values in some artistic works. In the classes I have taught over the previous years I’ve noticed that this internal struggle happens to my own students. Sometimes the class is focused on those struggles and directly addresses them. Other times that is not the purpose of the class and their individual concerns go largely unaddressed at a one-on-one level. The challenge, I think, is for students to seek out these opportunities to either change or strengthen their opinions of the world. Argue, in other words, for the other guy. I’m hoping to incorporate this idea into a short answer question for an upcoming exam. Hopefully the students will take me up on the offer.