By Paula Mabry
Matt Ogle’s speech class at Silverton High is one of my favorite things. I’ve had two kids go through the program, and while the weekend tournaments can make scheduling family time a challenge, it’s been wonderfully worthwhile. It’s helped ground the kids. They’ve learned there are at least two sides to every issue. It’s helped with poise, organization and reasoning, too. As important – maybe more important – they have learned that just because someone else holds an opposite view from one’s own doesn’t make that person a jerk or uninformed. It can just mean they see the world from another vantage point and have different goals, or different ideas as to how similar goals are achieved. What wonderful lessons to learn so early. Of course, the kids have also learned – through life as much as through class – that behavior can make anyone a jerk, even if they agree with you. Sunday afternoon my daughter was researching the Nobel Peace Prize for a project for Mr. Ogle’s class. She was trying to focus on the goal of the award. Periodically she’d pipe up with “Listen to this,” and read quotes from various commentators on the 2009 Nobel committee’s selection of President Obama. Some of it left us shaking our heads. I will defend one’s right to his or her own opinion on the selection, but I wish we had a more civil discourse. Education is the foundation of a civil society. I am grateful to educators like Matt Ogle who give their pupils the tools to form and espouse reasoned and researched positions.
