World History: Change For Brazil

A classroom faceoff over the future of Brazil circa 1984 was both challenging and instructive to students in Trip Powers’ 20th Century World History classes. Diretas Ja was a grassroots political movement in Brazil that demanded the replacement of military rule with democracy through direct elections. Brazilians of all stations participated in mass demonstrations across the country to demand improvements to health, safety, and quality of life that they believed would result from a democratically-elected government.
 
Half of the students worked in pairs to deliver platform speeches representative of the major political factions of the day. Representing Brazilian citizens, the other students interrogated the would-be candidates about their plans for creating a new government with accountability to the people. The Diretas Ja movement was remarkable for its pervasiveness among huge numbers of Brazilians of virtually all economic and social standings and for the resulting changes to government and the economy that subsequently swept across the nation.
 
Trip Powers: "This lesson gets to two central goals of the class; learning how to respectfully argue real political issues and trying to understand the history and culture of the country being studied from the perspective of the people that live there. I was quite pleased with how the students were able to delve into their characters and debate, again respectfully, the issues surrounding the pro-democracy movement Diretas Ja!"
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