The Political Classroom

Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education

Diana E. Hess, Paula McAvoy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317575023
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

WINNER 2016 Grawemeyer Award in Education

Helping students develop their ability to deliberate political questions is an essential component of democratic education, but introducing political issues into the classroom is pedagogically challenging and raises ethical dilemmas for teachers. Diana E. Hess and Paula McAvoy argue that teachers will make better professional judgments about these issues if they aim toward creating "political classrooms, " which engage students in deliberations about questions that ask, "How should we live together?"

Based on the findings from a large, mixed-method study about discussions of political issues within high school classrooms, The Political Classroom presents in-depth and engaging cases of teacher practice. Paying particular attention to how political polarization and social inequality affect classroom dynamics, Hess and McAvoy promote a coherent plan for providing students with a nonpartisan political education and for improving the quality of classroom deliberations.

1
Introduction to the Political Classroom

The 2009 school year opened amid a firestorm of political controversy. As the nation’s students and teachers prepared to return to their classrooms, newly elected President Barack Obama announced that he would address the country’s school-children on the first day of school. According to a White House press release, President Obama’s speech was intended to be motivational and “to challenge students to set goals, work hard and stay in school” (U.S. Department of Education, 2009). Although President Obama was not the first president to address schoolchildren— President George H. W. Bush had delivered a similar live speech on radio and television in 1991—some Republican politicians, parents, cable-news commentators, talk-radio hosts, and bloggers voiced strong opposition to the speech. The New York Times reported that, despite assurances from the White House that the speech would be “nonpartisan,” some parents “were concerned because the speech had not been screened for political content” (McKinley & Dillon, 2009, para. 3). Brett Curtis, a parent in Texas, explained why he kept his three children home that day: “The thing that concerned me most about it was it seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child” (McKinley & Dillon, 2009, para. 4). He continued, “I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement,” a comment that alluded to the highly contentious debate about the Affordable Care Act that was playing out at the same time (McKinley & Dillon, 2009, para. 4). Others felt that the president’s speech was appropriate classroom content and that “telling children they should not hear out the president of the United States, even if their parents dislike his policies, sends the wrong message—that one should not listen to someone with whom you disagree” (McKinley & Dillon, 2009, para. 20). Though the controversy intensified, President Obama delivered the address as planned at a Virginia high school; it was streamed live on the White House website, and schools were invited to show the speech to students. While some parents kept their children home to avoid screenings, others demanded that their child’s school provide an alternative activity.¹

President Bush’s 1991 speech to students also elicited criticism from political opponents—primarily for using $26,750 in public money for the event—though the issue received far less play in the media. At that time, some Democrats argued that it was unethical for the president to direct a speech at the nation’s schoolchildren. Congressman Richard Gephardt of Missouri voiced a sharp critique: “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president; it should be helping us to produce smarter students” (Cooper & Pianin, 1991, p. A14). Republican Congressman Newt Gingrich of Georgia defended President Bush’s speech, asking, “Why is it political for the president of the United States to discuss education? It was done at a nonpolitical site and was beamed to a nonpolitical audience” (Cooper & Pianin, 1991, A14).²

The controversy over these presidential speeches highlights enduring dilemmas in education: Are schools, as Congressman Gingrich contends, “nonpolitical sites,” or are they political spaces? Are students members of a “nonpolitical audience,” or are they members of the democratic public? And, can schools be political spaces without also being labeled “partisan”? These questions emanate from the continually contested relationship between the institution of schools, public and private, and the larger democratic society. Understanding this relationship sheds light on the role that schools should play in preparing young people for political life. For some, classrooms should be insulated from the political world. For others, educational institutions have a responsibility to prepare young people for political engagement. But even among people who agree that schools should educate toward democratic participation, there are disagreements about where the boundary between the schoolhouse and the public sphere should be drawn.

In the United States, one of the earliest and most instructive examples of this tension occurred during the Common School Movement, when public-school reformer Horace Mann appointed Unitarian minister and abolitionist Samuel J. May as principal of one of Massachusetts’ first teacher-training schools. One evening in 1843, May gathered the young women in his charge and brought them to an abolitionist meeting—a decision that resulted in one father removing his daughter from the school. Mann sent a concerned letter to May, expressing regret that the school “lost a very fine girl from one of their most respectable families” and urging May to consider such potential consequences in the future (Mann, 1865, p. 170). In the letter exchange that followed, May defended his actions by arguing that many students already were abolitionists “or were made so by Father Pierce [a teacher at the school]” (Mann, 1865, p. 170, [emphasis original]). Growing increasingly frustrated, Mann retorted that such teaching was akin to religious proselytizing. The teacher, Mann wrote, “had no right to make them so, any more than he had to make them Unitarians,” and using the school in this way “is obviously a violation of [State and investors’] trust” (Mann, 1865, p. 170).

Both the presidential speeches and the reaction to May’s abolitionist excursion demonstrate ways in which schools are influenced by the broader political and social climate. In the 1830s, just as the Common School Movement was gaining momentum, anti-slavery forces fractured into those who supported a gradualist approach to ending slavery and those, like May, who adopted the more radical view that emancipation should be immediate. Mann, who was also an abolitionist, worried that if public schools were perceived as being pro-abolitionist, it would undermine the progress that had been made toward establishing universal (though racially segregated) public education.³ In particular, he feared that May’s active involvement in the abolitionist movement would provide fuel for Common School opponents in the state legislature and discourage needed investment by the “rich men” of Massachusetts (Mann, 1865, p. 172). In her biography of Horace Mann written in 1865, his wife, Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, recalled that her husband had deep respect for May in part because he was “so profound a hater of slavery,” but she defended Mann’s rebuke of him during a time so polarized “that no public interest was safe that was associated with the desire to do away with chattel slavery!” (p. 168).

In the more recent example, the political climate played a role in the public’s response to the presidential speeches. While President Bush’s speech incited a mild political reproach by congressional Democrats, President Obama’s speech resulted in a vitriolic backlash. The different reactions reflect the increasingly polarized (and racialized) political climate that has made it harder for politicians and neighbors to talk with those who disagree with them about important policy issues—a phenomenon that results in public distrust of politicians and public institutions such as schools. The cause of this polarization is a complicated story of social, political, and economic change that we address in Chapter 2, but we note here that there is a close relationship between the extent of political polarization that exists in a particular time and the amount of controversy over how schools should prepare students for the political world.

The complicated relationship between schools and the larger political context creates ethical challenges for teachers and administrators. In the Antebellum Era, proponents of the anti-slavery movement likely disagreed about whether May should have taken his students to the abolitionist meeting. Some undoubtedly thought that ending slavery should take priority over the Common School Movement. Others probably argued that an education that did not encourage students to take a stand on the most important moral question of the time was not fulfilling its mission. Still others might have agreed with Mann that taking sides on a controversial political issue violated the trust of the public, students, and parents. Or they may have believed that Mann’s pragmatic approach was necessary to further the cause of free education for all. The disagreement between Mann and May revolved around the question of whether it was appropriate for schools to try to influence the political views of teachers in training, who in turn could exert that same influence on their own students. More recently, in response to public pressure, school administrators made different judgments about President Obama’s speech: Some chose to cancel school-wide viewing of the address, while most went ahead and showed the speech as scheduled. Others allowed teachers to decide if they would show the speech in their classrooms, while some schools allowed students to opt out. Making assessments about who used good professional judgment in these cases is difficult and requires one to be clear about what is meant by “political” and about what one believes are the purposes of schools in a democratic society. Helping teachers, parents, administrators, and students (and even political pundits) think through the relationship between schools and democratic society—and examining some of the ethical dilemmas that necessarily arise when teachers decide to include controversial political issues in the curriculum—are the purposes of this book.

The Political Classroom

We argue that schools are, and ought to be, political sites. In this context, we use the term “political” as it applies to the role of citizens within a democracy: We are being political when we are democratically making decisions about questions that ask, “How should we live together?” By extension, the political classroom is one that helps students develop their ability to deliberate political questions. When teachers engage students in discussions about what rules ought to be adopted by a class, they are teaching them to think politically. Similarly, when teachers ask students to research and discuss a current public controversy, such as, “Should same-sex marriage be legally recognized?,” they are engaging in politics.

It is important to distinguish this conception of politics from the concern of parents and teachers that schools should not be partisan institutions. That is, to use public schools for the benefit or advancement of a particular political party’s or politician’s agenda would be an over-reach of state power. But schools (public and private) nevertheless are charged with preparing young people for life in a democracy, and to strip classrooms of any political content whatsoever would be an abdication of that responsibility. Moreover, the precise nature of what counts as promoting a partisan agenda is a matter of intense contestation—especially in times of political polarization. This brings us to what we call the “political education paradox,” which frames much of what we discuss in this book. Simply put, it contrasts the need to provide students with a nonpartisan political education on the one hand with the need to prepare them to participate in the actual, highly partisan political community on the other. Part of the ethical challenge of teaching about politics is determining where political education ends and partisan proselytizing begins.

At the same time, we are not saying that schools are, or should be, politically neutral institutions. In fact, the political classroom is undergirded by values that promote a particular view of democratic life and so cannot be considered neutral. In Controversy in the Classroom, Diana Hess (2009) argues that political discussions are an essential part of learning to live in a democracy. Mastering the ability to talk across political and ideological differences helps create an informed citizenry—an essential component of a democratic society—by teaching students to weigh evidence, consider competing views, form an opinion, articulate that opinion, and respond to those who disagree. This conception of politics has its theoretical roots in the principles of deliberative democracy. In this theory, a policy or government is considered “legitimate” when the decision-making process is open to public deliberation. Much like John Dewey’s (1916/2004) view of “democracy as a way of life,” deliberative theorists argue that when the public discusses policy, knowledge is expanded, self-interest is diminished, and the result is a policy that a community or polity can legitimately expect members to follow. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson (1996) argue that this process is primarily about “reason-giving.” They explain:

We define deliberative democracy as a form of government in which free and equal citizens (and their representatives) justify decisions in a process in which they give one another reasons that are mutually acceptable and generally accessible, with the aim of reaching conclusions that are binding in the present on all citizens but open to challenge in the future.

(p. 7)

Similarly, proponents of the political classroom seek to teach young people to see each other as political equals and to inculcate them into the practice of reason-giving and considering how their views and behaviors affect others.

This type of democratic education requires students to talk in particular ways about particular kinds of questions. That is, students need to discuss and deliberate questions for which there are multiple and competing views—what Hess (2009) labels “open” questions. Walter Parker (2003) draws a distinction between the aims of classroom discussion and deliberation. “Discussion,” he argues, “is a kind of shared inquiry, the desired outcomes of which rely on the expression and consideration of diverse views” (p. 129). The purpose of discussion is to create “shared understanding” through listening, questioning and working through ideas “in progress” (p. 129). Deliberation is a more specific type of discussion, one that aims “at deciding on a plan of action that will resolve a shared problem…. The opening question is usually some version of ‘What should we do about this?’” (p. 131). To clarify this difference, students might discuss the meaning of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution but deliberate the question “Should there be laws against the private ownership of assault weapons?” Both types of talk have democratic value, because, when done well, this sort of dialogue will give students practice giving reasons, listening, considering perspectives, evaluating views, and treating each other as political equals. But deliberation is particularly important for the formation of dispositions and values that support democracy because it requires students to consider the larger question, “How should we live together?” Deliberative theory assumes that participants “aim at finding fair terms of cooperation,” “speak truthfully,” and seek a solution that promotes the common good (Mansbridge et al., 2010, p. 66). When students engage in this type of talk, it encourages them to move from the self-interested thinking of “What is best for me?” to the deliberative question, “Which option seems best for society as a whole, given varied views and perspectives?”

Teaching students to deliberate political issues is an important element of democratic education. We note, however, that how to do this is a pedagogical challenge, in part because classrooms are unusual political spaces. On the one hand, schools are institutions that are able to provide young people with the opportunity to reason with others who may hold a variety of views; through this process, students learn that political disagreement and compromise are both valuable and normal parts of democratic decision-making. But students are also a “captive audience” of emerging citizens, and unlike adults in other public spaces, students are not able to easily exit situations that they find uncomfortable or offensive. Teachers often compel or cajole students to participate in discussions about topics they did not choose and in groups they have not selected. Finally, students also are being raised by other adult caregivers who may adhere to religious, cultural, or political values that are not well aligned with the aims of the school. Because classrooms are unusual political spaces, introducing political thinking to students in a way that is fair, age appropriate, and culturally sensitive, and that, in the end, prepares them for democratic life, requires teachers to make ethical choices. These include: Which issues will I address in my curriculum? How will I present them? What am I trying to accomplish? And how do my own opinions about this issue come into play?

Many teachers choose to avoid using political deliberations and discussions with students, often because they are unsure about how to negotiate the accompanying pedagogical challenges. Further deterring teachers is the increasingly polarized climate outside schools. Fear of parental and public backlash leads some teachers to retreat to lectures and the textbook. In Chapter 2, we will show how polarization is making it more difficult for teachers to create political classrooms; but rather than responding to what we see as a crisis in democracy by abandoning the values of deliberative democracy, we argue that engaging students in political deliberation is both possible and necessary.

Challenges to the Deliberative Ideal

It is important to keep in mind that deliberative theory presents an idea of what a better, more legitimate democratic society would look like; it is not a description of the world as it is. William Stanley (2010) argues that one important tension in social studies education exists between engaging students in activities that “transmit” the social order (preparing students for the world as it is) and those that “transform” it (preparing students for the society that ought to be). This tension also plays out in the political classroom. Teaching students to deliberate current political controversies prepares th...