Dictators can be loathed. But their abrupt departure from office can trigger turmoil because they have put themselves alone at the centre of power. U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland, 16 June 2021 (Saul Loeb/Pool via...
Many Russians dream of a democratic future. But an onslaught of propaganda shields Vladimir Putin from opponents and obscures the truth. Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during the Victory Day military parade marking the 75th anniversary of the Nazi...
The world is awash in misinformation. But can we rein it in without eroding free speech? Our podcast explores this thorny issue facing our societies. News Decoder · Let's Talk About It We are all flooded with misinformation. But what can we do about it? We turned...
Many young people find it difficult to write. They can struggle to convey their thoughts and can get bogged down in convoluted sentences. Our recommendation is to write as though you are explaining an issue to your family over dinner – to keep it simple. That’s one reason a podcast can offer a more natural way to examine an issue, even one as thorny as free speech. In their engaging podcast, Chloe Patricof and Anabella Paige of The Hewitt School speak naturally about a tough topic – misinformation – and turn to the managing editor of a U.S. media company to explore whether government regulation is an answer. Such a conversation can be an alluring way to delve into a knotty issue.
Exercise: Have your students pair up and record a conversation about a polarizing issue in their community, making sure to try to convey the views of all legitimate sides.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the fall of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe. What was the USSR, and what does Putin really want? Russian communist party supporters commemorate the death anniversary of the founder of the former Soviet Union, Vladimir...
It’s next to impossible to fathom why Russia might have invaded Ukraine without understanding the Soviet Union and Vladimir Putin’s attachment to the notion of an empire led by Moscow. Few are better placed than Julian Nundy, whose links to Ukraine go back more than half a century, to explain the complex relationship between Russia and its western neighbor. In his decoder, Nundy takes the reader from the upheaval of the Russian revolution to the collapse of the USSR and, with it, Russia’s loss of buffer states – for Putin, an intolerable affront.
Exercise: Ask your students to choose a revolution – if their country had a revolution, then that should be their focus – and to assess the good that may have come out of it, and the bad.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine begs questions that most young people have never asked. Here’s how to make sense of the conflict at the heart of Europe. A woman cries in a house crowded with people seeking shelter from Russian airstrikes, outside the capital...