Throughout university I have been challenged with the idea of teaching controversial issues and creating an atmosphere conducive to the discussion of uncomfortable topics. The social studies, history, native studies, law, and even psychology curriculum we will be most likely to interact with provide a nearly constant opportunity to address controversial issues. If done properly, teaching students about these issues can open up their minds to a perspective they have never witnessed before and perhaps, may never interact with in their life. Saskatchewan communities and parents often instill a very biased perspective in their children and as social studies teachers we have a great opportunity/obligation to set the record straight. My goal of this short writing is to, through research, provide a short list of to keep in mind when trying to implement and teach controversial issues successfully.
1. Navigating Technology
A 2004 educational research study in Great Britain showed that 79% of students wanted to know more about what is happening in developing countries and said 89% of young people get their information from the news, 66% from newspapers, and 42% from the internet. Since 2004 the accessibility and use of technology has greatly increased. As teacher, it is important to keep in mind that one of our major roles when teaching controversial issues is to help students learn to navigate the mass amount of information they can find on the internet. They need to understand what are/are not credible sources and know that everything they read may not be true.
2. Ground Rules
The Global Citizenship Guide explains that in order for teachers to successfully teach students about controversial issues; ground rules must be established. This will help students know what is expected of them and to know what they can say without feelings of anxiety or apprehension. The goal of these ground rules is to provide students with a framework from which they can understand aspects of respect, beliefs, and opinions when dealing with controversial issues. These ground rules should include the idea of justification. Students with then know the different between an informed opinion and an opinion which will potentially help them see the invalidity with stereotypes and deeply embedded societal representations of certain groups. The Guide represents this as a “challenging the ideas not the people” (pg. 6). These ground rules will help the operations of the classroom run much smoother during discussion and class activities dealing with often uncomfortable situations. It is also important to remember that students may need to be reminded of these ground rules from time to time and if tempers flare in heated debates and small break may be required to ease tensions.
3. Draw connections.
It is important for teachers to give students the opportunity to research several areas of controversy. This can be as simple as splitting the class into groups or pairs and having each group of students research a controversial issue in the world. The teacher can provide a list of possible research issues. The students can do their research and present their findings to the class. After all groups have presented it is key that teachers draw connections between these topics to understand that issues exist all over the world and share several similarities and differences. This can help students see that some of the same issues that exist in Africa or Asia also exist right here in Saskatchewan. Doing this may allow the teacher to play devil’s advocate. The teacher may question students about these issues to further their thinking. With regard to the teacher playing devil’s advocate, Teaching Controversial Issues states, “the teacher can model good debate practice and illustrate how to conduct an argument and expose weaknesses in opposing views. By connecting issues from around the world to those in our communities students can see the similarities of all people around the world.
4. Differing Perspectives
It is vital that teachers give students opportunities to see the world from several perspectives. Teaching Controversial Issues outlines a five step debate strategy for implementing this idea. The steps include a) teacher or class chosen debate resolution, b) pairs research and develop their debate argument, c) the debate is hosted, d) teams reverse their roles and present the argument against the team they debated against, e) “the teams abandon advocacy and write a compromise report that synthesizes the argument of both sides” (pg. 4). Teachers can also have students express their opinion about something and then challenge them to write a short paper advocating for the opposite side of their opinion to demonstrate that each topic has several sides to it. If a broad topic is chosen, students can represent several facets of the issue and a ten sided debate could be held. The purpose of this would be to show students that some issues have several interests involved.
5. Start small.
After completing internship I discovered two things about teaching controversial issues. The first of these is that in no matter what capacity, it is important to start. Teachers can’t expect to turn their students into activists after teaching them for a few months. It is not important that we go to conventions, or host debates for the community, it is key that we simply start with something. The key is to START! The longer we try to perfectly plan to implement a controversial issues component into our course, the longer students will be unaware of injustices in our world and the longer they will continue to exist.
The next key aspect I learned is to not start with the most controversial of issues first. I tried to teach an all white, very Eurocentric thinking group of students about First Nations issues in Canada. They heavily resisted this and made it very difficult to have a rich discussions and I found myself playing devil’s advocate the entire time. I believe that if I would have look at similar injustices around the world first or introduced students to the idea of dealing with controversial issues, I would have had more success.
Classroom Environments 