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The Debate Digest
Our latest and best pro/con articles to help you develop a position on the world's most important issues.
- Teacher-student friendships on Facebook - August 29th, 2011. Minnesota just enacted a law that bans exclusive relationships and communications between teachers and students via social networks like Facebook. Other states, the nation, and the world consider the debate.
Featured pro and con arguments from this article:
- CON: Exclusive teacher-student relationships are inappropriate. Charol Shakeshaft, professor and chairwoman of the Department of Educational Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University: "Exclusive and private contact with your students isn't educationally necessary. In the same way that in a school we would say, 'No, you may not lock yourself into a room with a student,' this law effectively says, 'No you may not lock yourself into a website where only you can get to the student.' [...] Anything I need to do as a teacher I can do in a public space or a space that can be accessed by people. If I need to be doing it completely in private, then I shouldn't be doing it."[1]
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See Past Debate Digest topics
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Debates In The News
- Debate: Death penalty Republican US presidential candidate Rick Perry executed 234 convicts during his ten years as governor of Texas [more than any other governor in modern history], reinvigorating a national debate on the practice.[2]
- Debate: US intervention in Libya As Libyan rebels took control of Tripoli, many came back to the question of whether US and NATO interventions were worth it, with many now conceding that the mission was worthwhile.[3]
- Debate: Polygamy This issue briefly peaked back into the news when Warren Jeffs, a notorious polygamist, was sentenced to life in prison on August 9th, 2011.[4]
- Global climate change debate portal Heatwaves around the world have renewed calls for renewable energy of every kind: Austin Chronicle.
More Debates in the News
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