Controversy in the Classroom

The Democratic Power of Discussion

Diana E. Hess

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781135897345
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In a conservative educational climate that is dominated by policies like No Child Left Behind, one of the most serious effects has been for educators to worry about the politics of what they are teaching and how they are teaching it. As a result, many dedicated teachers choose to avoid controversial issues altogether in preference for "safe" knowledge and "safe" teaching practices. Diana Hess interrupts this dangerous trend by providing readers a spirited and detailed argument for why curricula and teaching based on controversial issues are truly crucial at this time. Through rich empirical research from real classrooms throughout the nation, she demonstrates why schools have the potential to be particularly powerful sites for democratic education and why this form of education must include sustained attention to authentic and controversial political issues that animate political communities. The purposeful inclusion of controversial issues in the school curriculum, when done wisely and well, can communicate by example the essence of what makes communities democratic while simultaneously building the skills and dispositions that young people will need to live in and improve such communities.

I
The Case for Controversial Political Issues

1
Why Democracy Demands Controversy

In the “Bong hits for Jesus” case (Morse v. Frederick, 2007), the United States Supreme Court wrestled with the question of whether its traditional, albeit muted, support for the free speech rights of students in public schools should be curtailed if the student “speech” could be interpreted as promoting the use of illegal drugs. The Court’s split decision in the case illustrates different views about the purposes of public schools in a democratic society. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts said that when a school principal suspended a high school student for unfurling a banner proclaiming “Bong hits for Jesus,” she was acting within the bounds of the Constitution because the speech could be interpreted as advocating illegal drug use. Justices Alito and Kennedy, while agreeing with Roberts, were careful to draw limits on a public school’s ability to restrict the right of students to speak on public issues. Conversely, Justice Thomas wrote that the very idea of students possessing First Amendment speech rights in school was spurious: “In light of the history of American public education, it cannot seriously be suggested that the First Amendment ‘freedom of speech’ encompasses a student’s right to speak in public schools. Early public schools gave total control to teachers, who expected obedience and respect from students” (Thomas, J., concurring, p. 10). Notably, even on a Supreme Court that is considered quite conservative, Justice Thomas was unable to garner any support for his position.

The Morse v. Frederick (2007) case is important because even though the majority opinion did place some limitations on students’ free speech rights in public schools that the Court had not articulated previously, both conservative and liberal justices, with the exception of Justice Thomas, went to great pains to stipulate that students should and do have a constitutionally enshrined right to speak about important political issues while in public schools. Liberals and conservatives alike lauded extending some free speech rights to young people in schools—at least theoretically. They asserted the importance of maintaining schools’ traditional role of educating citizens for political participation and exposing young people to multiple and competing views about controversial issues. For example, in his dissent, Justice Stevens encouraged schools to engage students in discussions about contemporary drug policy, likening current drug laws to prohibition, which was a hot controversy during the time he attended secondary school. He explicitly argued that silence about controversial issues, both in schools and in society, makes it more likely that bad policies will prevail. Specifically, he argued:

Even in high school, a rule that permits only one point of view to be expressed is less likely to produce correct answers than the open discussion of countervailing views. Whitney, 274 U.S., at 377 (Brandeis, J., concurring); Abrams, 250 U.S., at 630 (Holmes, J., dissenting); Tinker, 393 U.S., at 512. In the national debate about a serious issue, it is the expression of the minority’s viewpoint that most demands the protection of the First Amendment. Whatever the better policy may be, a full and frank discussion of the costs and benefits of the attempt to prohibit the use of marijuana is far wiser than suppression of speech because it is unpopular (Stevens, J., dissenting, p. 16).

I disagree with the Court’s decision in the Morse v. Frederick (2007) case because it sends a message to the lower courts that students’ speech rights can be whittled away. However, I strongly support some of the justices’ position that speech, schooling, and democracy are inextricably linked. Unlike those justices, Thomas ignored the reality that public schools are the government. Although suppressing student speech may be acceptable in a totalitarian state, it surely has no place in a democratic nation. Nevertheless, merely refusing to suppress student speech in schools does not promote the development of democrats (note the small “d”) either. As noted in the introduction, a more enlightened policy would teach all young people to engage in high-quality public talk about controversial political issues.

There are four main points I make in this chapter. First, there is an intrinsic and crucial connection between the discussion of controversial political issues, especially among people with disparate views, and the health of a democracy. This is so because participating in political discussion can have two powerful effects: it makes people more politically tolerant and it causes them to learn more about important issues. Second, there is mounting evidence that relatively few people in the United States currently engage in such political talk and the trend is clearly moving in a non-deliberative direction. Fewer people now are likely to engage in political talk with people who do not share their views than in the past. The political consequences of this trend are harmful for individuals and for society at large. Third, one especially powerful way to work on lassoing this trend is to use the schools as sites for transformation by teaching young people how to engage in such discussions. This is clearly an ambitious goal—and we know from a myriad of past efforts that using the schools as a lever to change society does not always work. Schools, after all, are a reflection of society, so their transformational potential has both theoretical and practical limits. Fourth, notwithstanding the promise of schools as powerful sites for this form of democratic education, there are many, many barriers that stand in the way of mining the deliberative potential of schools. However, there is evidence that many teachers are teaching their students to engage in high-quality discussion of controversial political issues—that they have found ways to hurdle the barriers—which benefits their students and, I will argue, has the potential to benefit the rest of us as well.

Before turning to my first point—which is that discussion and democracy go hand in hand—it is important to define what I mean by two central concepts used throughout the book: discussion and democratic education.

What Is Discussion?

There are numerous approaches for how to include controversial political issues in the classroom, such as simulations, role-plays, and writing assignments. Although this book will detail a number of ways in which teachers combine these activities with discussions, its primary focus is on teaching young people how to engage effectively in high-quality discussions of controversial political and constitutional issues. For that reason, it is important to define discussion, which is a contested concept both on the theoretical front and in practice. Within the context of democratic education, educators commonly focus on the importance of controversial issue discussions: public discussions that in their process include, nurture, and honor diverse views, and in their content, focus on authentic political issues. Authentic political issues do not constitute the sole discussion subjects that democratic educators support (Parker, 2006), but they have a stronger presence in the theory, studies, and reports of researchers in this area than other kinds of discussions, such as text-based seminar discussions; however, as we shall see in Chapter 4, there are teachers who use seminar discussions for the purposes typically associated with classroom talk about issues.

Consider the following definitions advanced by scholars with expertise in classroom discussion: (1) “the free exchange of information among three or more participants (which could include the teacher)” (Christoph & Nystrand, 2001, p. 250); (2) “an alternatively serious and playful effort by a group of two or more to share views and engage in mutual and reciprocal critique” (Brookfield & Preskill, 1999, p. 6); (3) “a particular form of group interaction where members join together in addressing a question of common concern, exchanging and examining different views to form their answer, enhancing their knowledge or understanding, their appreciation or judgment, their decision, resolution or action over the matter at issue” (Dillon, 1994, p. 8); (4) “a kind of shared inquiry the desired outcomes of which rely on the expression and consideration of diverse views” (Parker, 2003, p. 129); (5) “[public] talk about something upon which the group seeks to improve its knowledge, understanding and/or judgment and it will be of an appropriate form” (Bridges, 1979, p. 27).

Notice the differences among these definitions. The first is minimalist—requiring only a small number of participants and the simple exchange of ideas. The next describes the ethos of discussion (“alternatively serious and playful”) and its content (“sharing views and critique”), but not the goal. The third identifies a precondition for discussion (there must be a question of common concern), the content (exchanging and examining views), and the purpose of the discussion (to form an answer, or to build knowledge, understanding, appreciation, or judgment). The fourth definition focuses on the process of discussion—inquiry-based on the exploration of multiple perspectives. The final definition combines purpose and form, but also specifies that the forum must be public—a particularly important point for classroom discussion.

Notwithstanding the differences among these definitions of discussion, there are common features that help distinguish discussion from other forms of classroom talk, among which are lecture and recitation. First, discussion is dialogue between or among people. It involves, at a minimum, the exchange of information about a topic (e.g., a controversy, a problem, an event, a person, etc.). Second, discussion is a particular approach to constructing knowledge that is predicated on the belief that the most powerful ideas can be produced when people are expressing their ideas on a topic and listening to others express theirs. Moreover, the multiple definitions quoted above illustrate an area of consensus regarding discussion: it takes many forms and is used for many purposes. This is especially the case when discussion is employed as a form of democratic education—a type of education framed by multiple, and seemingly contradictory, goals. Among the dilemmas faced by democratic educators are their desires to simultaneously forge community and nurture controversy, to develop in their students commitments to particular values while respecting their rights to hold ideas that are not shared, and to encourage the expression of political “voice” without coercively demanding participation.

Differentiating Democratic Education from Civic Education

Throughout the book, I use the term “democratic education” instead of civic education. I do so deliberately because the label “civic education” suggests “fitting in” to society as it currently operates, whereas my deliberate use of “democratic” highlights the dynamic and contested dimensions inherent in a democracy. I saw this distinction most clearly while spending time in schools in two nations that were—in my view—far from democratic: the USSR in the 1980s and Cuba just before the dawning of the new century. Both nations had robust and startlingly effective civic education in their schools. Students learned a lot about the history of their nations, their own roles and responsibilities in daily life, and why their system of governance was vastly superior to others in the world at the time, especially that of the United States. I frequently heard young people talk about why their nation was the “best in the world.”

Doing a good job teaching civic education seemed to be pretty uncomplicated in these two nations. Fights about how history should be represented in the official government textbooks did not consume the time and energy of administrators, teachers, students, and community members. The principals also did not have to respond to parents who were angry about a guest speaker spouting controversial views with which they disagreed, as guest speakers who did not support the state’s version of events typically were not invited into classrooms. Nor did teachers have to carve out instructional time to introduce multiple perspectives on controversial public issues. Only one “official” perspective was included in the curriculum. Thus issues were not issues, per se; they were answers.

The supposed consensus on these official curricula was a ruse. Indeed, it masked deep tensions and divisions in both of those societies. Yet, my experiences in the USSR and Cuba also poignantly exposed the difference between civic and democratic education. In a nutshell, democratic education is a form of civic education that purposely teaches young people how to do democracy. It stands at the crossroads of authenticity and transformation. In other words, democratic education both honestly addresses the political world outside of school and represents that political realm as dynamic, thereby emphasizing the ongoing transformation of society. In such an education, the democratic ideal is simply stated: people can build a better society. This ideal, with its Enlightenment roots, certainly is not unique to the United States, which is the first thing we need to make sure young people understand. It is also not without controversy, for multiple and competing conceptions of what constitutes a better society abound. Consequently, different conceptions of what citizens in a democracy should do to work toward that end also abound. With these definitions of discussion and democratic education in mind, I will widen the analytic lens to consider how democracy and discussion go hand in hand.

Why Democracy Demands Discussion

To many democratic theorists and practitioners, discussion is a proxy for democracy itself. Discussions in democratic societies, especially if characterized by inclusion and widespread participation, are markers of what Robert Dahl (1998) calls “intrinsic equality”—the fundamental assumption that the good of every human being is intrinsically equal to that of any other. The ideal of discussion supports the validity of intrinsic equality by implying, at least symbolically, that all members of a community are political equals and are therefore equally qualified to participate in discussion and decision making. The listening and talking that constitute discussion physically represent a core goal of democracy: self-governance among equals (Gastile & Levine, 2005). Thus, one rationale for discussion in democracy is that you cannot have democracy without discussion. As Mansbridge (1991) posits, “Democracy involves public discussion of common problems, not just silent counting of individual hands”. In short, to be against discussion is akin to opposing democracy.

But there are other reasons bolstering the need for the discussion of public problems in a democracy, and some are much more tightly focused and pragmatic. Engaging in discussion of public problems—as long as there are people in the group with views different from your own—builds political tolerance, teaches people, and may result in better policy decisions. Recall Justice Stevens’ point in his dissent in the “Bong hits for Jesus” case. He argued that “a rule that permits only one point of view to be expressed is less likely to produce correct answers than the open discussion of countervailing views.”

Building Tolerance Through Cross-cutting Political Talk

The causative relationship that exists between discussion and tolerance has long been one of the most powerful rationales used by those who advocate the need for discussion-rich environments in a democracy. By tolerance, I am not referring to a society in which it is legally and morally permissible for people to do whatever they want, but instead I refer to political tolerance, which is the willingness to extend important and significant rights (such as free speech) to people who are different from oneself. While all democracies, it can be argued, have a need to foster political tolerance, this is an especially important set of beliefs for highly diverse democracies, such as the United States, to cultivate. For without it, putting into practice the democratic ideal of intrinsic equality would be virtually impossible.

We know from research that engaging in discussion with people whose opinions are different from your own builds political tolerance—even if the discussion was not with a person from a different group. In a powerful series of studies assessing the impact that “cross-cutting political talk” has on attitudes and actions, Diana Mutz (2006) set out to examine political talk as it “naturally occurs” as part of routine social life in the United States. She was most interested in what happened when people were exposed to political perspectives different from their own. She called this kind of exposure “cross-cutting” in order to distinguish it from talking with people who share one’s political views—a form of interaction which is much more common in the United States.

While Mutz was well aware of a plethora of research that indicated powerful effects that accrued from highly structured deliberative experiments (such as Fishkin’s deliberative polling which we will turn to in a moment), her concern was whether or not some of the most powerful theoretical supports for political talk pan out in the practice of the kind of talk that people are more likely to engage in via their social networks. In particular, she wanted to know the answer to a fundamental question: What are the benefits of hearing the other side? She found that people who engage in this kind of political talk (and their numbers are low, approximately 23% of the adult U.S. population) do become more politically tolerant. This is so for two reasons: cross-cutting political talk familiarizes them with legitimate rationales for opposing views and normalizes and legitimizes a political conflict.

For example, imagine that I engage in a conversation with one of my work colleagues about whether or not our state should increase funding for stem cell research. I think they should, but my colleague disagrees, arguing that other needs are more pressing. Through our “cross-cutting” exchange we explain why we believe the way we do. Neither one of us changes our mind on the issue, but we come to better understand the reasons a person might have for an opposing position while simultaneously framing the issue itself as legitimate. This combination, according to Mutz, translates into a greater willingness to extend civil liberties even to those groups whose political views one dislikes a great deal (2006, p. 85). More specifically, she claims:

Ultimately, political tolerance is about formalized ways in which people agree to disagree. It is primarily about restraint and not doing, rather than political action. Thus carrying on conversations across lines of political difference, conversations in which one must agree to disagree at a microlevel, may teach important lessons about the necessity of political tolerance. After all, political tolerance is just the macrolevel, public policy rendition of agreeing to disagree.

The rationale for discussion in democracy as a way to build political tolerance only has power, of course, if there is a reason why extending important rights to people who significantly differ from oneself (either on the micro or macro level) enhances the health, stability, or sustainability of democracy. While there is a plethora of reasons why political tolerance and democracy go hand in hand, the most obvious is that a society without political tolerance is likely to enact policies that deprive some people of their right to influence the political agenda and to have an influence on what is decided. That is, there will be no political equality. And absent political equality, there really is not a democracy.

Talking with people who disagree with one’s political views can build political tolerance. So too can it produce learning—especially if the nature of the talk is structured to make it more likely that people will share, hear, and interrogate a variety of different interpretations about such important questions as what caused a problem and what the relative strengths and challenges associated with alternative solutions are.

Learning From and Through Deliberation

By producing learning, I mean that individuals will become better informed—quite simply, they will know and understand more. People who are lucky enough to have had experience with high-quality political talk often recognize that they are learning—both from what the...