If You Want Tolerance and Open-Mindedness, You Need to Teach Them

   What you teach is what you get, often. So, refashioning debate classes so the students argue not for one side of the issue, but for both makes sense, to me. We are a nation divided by politics. It would be good to plant seeds of tolerance for the views of others. If you train the student to consider both sides of the issue, you begin a healing process that brings more tolerance to the nation.
   So, if you are debating global warming, one person doesn't take the side saying there is global warming while the other person disputes it. No, instead they both are charged with bringing up arguments on both sides of the issue. The person who wins, is the person who makes the best points on both sides of the question.
   Thus, you teach the student to be open minded and tolerant, two things that make for a better citizenry. I will repeat, what you teach is what you get. If we do not have anything in our society that teaches these principles, then we should not expect to have them. If we do value them, then we should implement a mechanism for teaching them.