Educators Celebrated at ProCon.org for Teacher Appreciation Week

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Apr 29, 2016, 12:02 ET

SANTA MONICA, Calif., April 29, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- ProCon.org celebrates the upcoming Teacher Appreciation Week by thanking the educators who helped propel the web-based organization to another record-breaking quarter.

The nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, which is the nation's most popular resource for pro and con research on controversial issues, emailed its entire newsletter audience to publicly thank thousands of teachers, librarians, and administrators.

Students in middle school, high school, and college comprise nearly half of the 23 million readers at ProCon.org. The first quarter of 2016 brought 7.6 million readers – the biggest quarter ever in the organization's 12-year history. The increased traffic highlighted the importance to teachers of having a free, highly acclaimed educational resource to use in teaching students to develop critical skills and become informed citizens.

ProCon.org President & Managing Editor, Kamy Akhavan, wrote: "We have educators on our staff, on our board, and in our homes (my amazing wife is a high school English teacher). We understand how challenging and important their work is for our kids, our communities, our society, and our future generations. So, to all educators, thank you, sincerely and deeply. We appreciate you and your hard work."

In addition to the note of gratitude, ProCon.org – online at www.procon.org – highlighted some of its educational resources, which remain free of charge, nonpartisan, and geared to stimulate critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship.

Educational materials at ProCon.org include:

LESSON PLAN IDEAS - Designed to teach specific skills (implicit vs. explicit, finding main idea, primary source analysis, etc.) and content (controversial issues in literature, prescription drug ads throughout history, etc.), these lesson plan ideas are labeled by grade level, subject, and Common Core standard. They also include adaptations to make them easier or harder.

Their newest lesson plan idea is a discussion guide for the award-winning documentary Best of Enemies, which leads students to consider and discuss important questions about political conventions, pundits, television debate, and where our nation's political discourse may have gotten its often nasty tone.

CRITICAL THINKING SEMINAR - This short highlight reel from their 90-minute seminar demonstrates that opinions can shift and respectful dialogue can take place when structured conversations around controversial issues are carefully coordinated.

CRITICAL THINKING QUOTES – A showcase of dozens of powerful quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. to Coco Chanel and from Anne Frank to Bob Marley – all revolving around the topic of critical thinking.

For more information about teacher resources at ProCon.org, visit http://www.procon.org/education.php

About ProCon.org
ProCon.org (www.procon.org) is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, founded in 2004, whose mission is to encourage critical thinking, respectful debate, and informed citizenship. ProCon.org has more than 23,000,000 annual readers. Information is presented on 55 different ProCon.org issue websites in subjects ranging from alternative energy, gay marriage, and medical marijuana to the death penalty, immigration, and the 2016 presidential election.

ProCon.org is free of charge, requires no registration, and has been used by educators in more than 7,000 schools in all 50 states and more than 85 foreign countries.

ProCon.org is widely used and cited by mainstream media, including: The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, BBC, Slate, Daily Beast, Forbes, The Atlantic, and USA Today.