Oak Forest HS AP History Classes Engage in the Lively Art of Debate

Most AP classes at Oak Forest High School are working hard at memorizing materials for their upcoming AP test, an important test that can earn students college credit if they score a certain way.

In Jodie Hausken’s American History AP class, students are reviewing in an innovative way: they are debating the merits of various American Presidents. In this photo, Oak Forest High School AP history students Mike Thayer, Vienna Watters, and Tom Kucek are engaging in debating the merits and pitfalls of their various assigned presidents.

The debate is very effective at having students learn their classroom material. According to Hausken, “Students make connections between time periods in history as they are getting ready for their AP exam. One thing they do [in their debates] is to link their presidents in history. They defend their assigned president’s bad decisions and tout their good works.”

One of Mrs. Hausken’s students, Mike Thayer, was assigned Richard Nixon as his president to debate. He really liked the assignment. He said, “I liked it because I really like arguing. I enjoy debating and researching topics in order to point out flaws in other people’s arguments.”

The debate helped strengthen the students’ understanding of each president as well as developing connections between presidents. Students found after the first day of debate that they needed more material about the picayune good things and bad things of their president and went back and researched their topic more so they could represent their president with more depth of knowledge.

Thayer said, “The debate helped strengthen materials we learned about earlier in the year and reinforced them.”