High School Students Showing How To Be Responsible Voters

As I have written before, I am a debate producer by trade. A season like this one is fun, but can offer its fair share of frustrations.

One of the biggest frustrations that I run into is voters who simply make their voting decisions on the basis of 30 second ads. I’ve always felt that if you are making a decision that can impact the entire community, you owe it to the community to learn more about the issues.

This year, we’ve come up with a new way to not only inform voters about the issues on the ballot, but also show how some talented high school students can display what it truly means to be a critical thinker.

It’s easy to take one side of an issue. But to truly be a critical thinker, you must consider both sides of a proposal.

We challenged high school speech team members to do just that.

Both Sides of the Story is a new debate series on Colorado Public Television. It is hosted by CBS4s very own Alan Gionet and features high school speech team members arguing both sides of two major ballot issues on Colorado’s 2014 ballot.

Alan Gionet

Our first episode runs Wednesday, Sept. 24, at 7 p.m., featuring a debate about Proposition 105, which would mandate labeling of genetically modified or engineered foods.

Our second episode will run next Wednesday, Oct. 1st at 7:00pm, featuring a debate about Amendment 68, which would expand gaming at Colorado’s Horse Tracks.

What I found most compelling about the cases presented by the students that joined us from the very accomplished Denver East High School Speech and Debate Team, was the varied arguments and points, many of which have not been offered by either the pro or con campaigns.

Dylan Salzman, Michael Jones, Adina Glickstein and Ross Snyder accepted our challenge to debate these issues from both the pro and con sides. Each episode features a 20 minute debate on the proposal in question. A few minutes after the first debate, we do it all over again, with the same students from the first debate switching sides.

(credit: Colorado Public Television)

It was impressive to see passionate and thoughtful arguments from each student for both sides of each issue. It made it clear that there are many facets of these proposals to consider and I think provided a great example for voters everywhere.

Taking a look at issues and candidates with a critical eye means leaving prejudice and assumption behind. That’s how intelligent decisions of all kinds are made.

It seems that sometimes we are more likely to critically examine the merits of a menu of a new restaurant than we are of political issues. I would wager a fair amount of money that the majority of voters in our country spend more time carefully considering the merits of shows they will watch on Netflix more than they will consider their own ballot.

Maybe I am being cynical, but the cure to that cynicism is watching these high school students show, in very literal terms, that looking at both sides of an issue is not only the smart thing to do, but the right thing to do.

I think these students show a wonderful example of how to be a responsible voter. The irony is that these students are still months, if not a couple of years, away from enjoying the right to vote themselves.

If you miss the broadcasts of Both Sides of the Story, hosted by Alan Gionet, you can watch it at cpt12.org.

But even if you miss the show, I encourage you to at the very least heed the wise example shown by our students and truly consider both sides of all of the issues.

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About The Blogger

- Dominic Dezzutti, producer of the Colorado Decides debate series, a co-production of CBS4 and Colorado Public Television, looks at the local and national political scene in his CBSDenver.com blog. Read new entries here usually every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Dezzutti writes about federal, state and local matters and how our elected leaders are handling the issues important to Colorado. Dezzutti is also the host and producer of the Emmy award winning Colorado Inside Out on Colorado Public Television.