The Levan Institute collaborated with the Center for Active Learning in International Studies this year to create two full days of debating foreign policy and ethics with students and their teachers from around the area. Teachers were fist invited to attend a workshop that introduced them to the TIRP program and materials, as well as the student leadership conference. A month later 8 different schools chaperoned by 13 differerent teachers came together and offered new and innovative strategies for dealing with nuclear disarmament, foreign policy and ways forward.

 Foreign Policy and Ethics -- US Options with Iran

Following years of non-engagement, Iran is considered one of the biggest threats to the US today—is US foreign policy on the right path to avert disaster?  What could or should we be doing differently?  If Iran presents the world with a real nuclear threat in the coming months or years—how should the US respond?  What is the most strategic and ethical foreign policy to achieve security?

Student teams, representing conflicting worldviews and different ethical perspectives, will deliberate US policy options Iran. Students arrive ready to promote their views and present their policy options.  USC students mentor high school teams throughout the day to prepare for presentations and questioning in a final plenary session.

Conference materials will be online via the Activities Database at usc.edu/calis, key word search: HSLC 2010

Teacher's Workshop

Teachers were invited to attend an open and optional workshop where

• They engaged with the classroom materials that are intended to prepare student teams for HSLC.
• Many teachers (6 from the 8 different schools) who attended enrolled their students in the High School Leadership Conference, but without obligation.
• Teachers were introduced to the TIRP website where they can find lesson plans on various international issues to take back to their classrooms.

Lyn Boyd-Judson, Director of the USC Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics, engaged teachers in classroom materials and resources selected in order to address:

• US policy options toward Iran
• Conflicting worldviews and their differing moral foundations
• US history in Iran and an Iranian perspective of the West
• Basic background of non-proliferation and nuclear deterrence