Putting politics where it belongs: In the classroom

Abstract

Teaching university students through discussing controversial issues has the potential to build civic capacity and political tolerance.Putting Politics Where It Belongs: In the Classroom Diana Hess, Lauren GattiThroughout the last 50 years, the debate over engaging politics in the college classroom has raged on, sparked in part by the belief that liberal biases saturate scholarship and teaching in universities, which in turn lays the bedrock for the left-wing indoctrination of students. Polarizing and vitriolic debates abound regarding if, when, and how professors should disclose their political stances, whether or not they bear the responsibility to balance their curricular choices, and if and how they should approach teaching controversial issues. Frequently the pedagogical consequence of these debates has been to expunge politics from the classroom: politics are too dangerous, the thinking goes, too divisive for students and professors. In this chapter, we argue against this logic, asserting instead that politics indeed have a place in the classroom. Classrooms are rich sites for the discussion of controversial issues in large part because the students who populate them bring with them a diversity of perspectives, ideologies, and experiences. Classrooms can and should be places where students build deep knowledge about important controversies facing the body politic and where they learn how to talk and disagree about political controversies in ways that are inclusive and productive. When professors intentionally frame controversial issues, leverage diversity in the classroom, and are intentional (or not) about disclosing their own positions, they can facilitate rich controversial issues discussions in ways that work for student learning and democracy.

A review of the deliberative teaching approach

“…Yine müzakereci pedagojinin, gerçek dünya deneyimlerine dayanan karşılıklı görüşmeler için alan yaratmada müzakereci diyaloğun kullanılması sonucunda, topluluk katılımı ve demokratik eğitimi birbirine bağladığı ve dönüştürdüğü (Longo, 2013) söylenmiştir. Müzakereci pedagojinin etkin olarak kullanıldığı öğrenme-öğretme sürecinin sonucunda, öğrencilerin özellikle kamusal alandaki yaşama katılma yeterliliğini geliştirebilmek için sosyal sorunlara ve bu sorunlara karşı olan sorumluluklarını düşünmelerine teşvik ettiği (Hess ve Gatti, 2010) gözlemlenmiştir.…”

Our students are watching: navigating heightened polarization during class discussion

“…Oftentimes, discussions of these issues use the term politics, as in "let's not discuss politics", which we find to be a misnomer: "We are being political when we are collectively making decisions about how we ought to live together" (McAvoy and Hess, 2013, p. 16). Classrooms should be a place where students learn how to discuss politics in productive ways (Hess and Gatti, 2010) and, as mentioned above, the ELA classroom is inherently political (Godley and Thein, 2017). Our focus in this essay is more directly on how political polarization has made such discussions more difficult:…”

Assessing Deliberative Pedagogy: Using a Learning Outcomes Rubric to Assess Tradeoffs and Tensions

“…Others have stressed how deliberation may foster participatory management styles (Greitens & Strachan, 2014), as well as how deliberation facilitates communication skills and problem-based learning in the classroom (Drury, 2015;Maurer, 2015). Classroom exercises reflecting this orientation encourage students to consider their civic responsibilities around challenging public problems, with the aim of developing capacity for engaging in public life (Eberly, 2002;Hess & Gatti, 2010).…”