I vividly remember coming home from school on 11 September 2001 and my sister showing me the TV, where CBBC had changed to rolling news coverage of the devastating attacks in the US.
The following morning I recall sitting in modern studies knowing our teacher would want to talk to us about it, about what we thought, and how we felt about it all. It was a chance for us to ask questions, even though there weren’t yet any answers and to have a little contextual learning about a world event that would come to shape the next two decades.
Today we still teach 9/11 in modern studies, as a crucial foreign policy turning point in a course on conflict and terrorism. We discuss why people become terrorists, and what motivates them. It’s all controversial. It’s all challenging. That’s how it’s meant to be, and we must not shy away from that.
Not every controversial issue needs to be as big a topic as 9/11. Almost anything can be controversial if taught in a particular way, and without us knowing the context of how these issues are discussed at home. Frequently I have to check my own bias when teaching about poverty, for example, remembering I will be teaching young people who have different understandings about the causes and most effective resolutions to poverty, and consequently about the motives of different political philosophies.
It’s easy to see why teachers can be fearful to engage with such issues. There is an increased chance of pupils sharing the contents of lessons on social media, perhaps missing some of the nuance in the process. We know pupils go home and share things with parents, and out of context, it’s understandable why sometimes parents question the relevance or appropriateness of the content.
And yet young people today are surrounded by difficult issues - whether we choose to discuss them in the classroom or not. In a way I never had growing up, today’s young people are bombarded on social media with contradictory opinions on world events and polarising perspectives on religion, politics, sexuality and so much more. It would be a dereliction of our duty as teachers not to challenge some of that and give pupils a safe space to think out loud and question things they maybe otherwise think of as fact. As Oxfam puts it in their fantastic resource Teaching Controversial Issues, if young people are to become responsible citizens and effective contributors they should “have the opportunity to engage appropriately with controversial issues”.
The key word there is “appropriately”.
Just as teachers shouldn’t feel like they need to avoid controversial topics, nor should they wade in with their own opinions and seek to persuade. Challenging pupils means taking a step back and thinking about the context we need them to understand so that they have the confidence to engage with opinion forming. There’s very little point in asking them for their opinion on American troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, for example, if they don’t have any prior experience of the topic.
Academics from the University of Memphis recently engaged with high school teachers to understand their attitudes towards teaching controversial subjects. They stated that “controversial issues must be studied in the classroom without the assumption that they are settled in advance or there is only one right answer in matters of dispute”, adding: “The social studies teacher must approach such issues in a spirit of critical inquiry exposing the students to a variety of ideas, even if they are different from their own.”
This is surely our key challenge - how do we engage in discussion with pupils without it becoming all about us and what we think?
Here are a few things to think about:
1. Giving pupils space to talk about an issue they are thinking about is more important than holding off until you have a full lesson ready
The space to discuss doesn’t need to be overly structured, although some context to the issue and some individual thinking time helps avoid a class discussion that is actually just a few pupils talking and others tuning out. It doesn’t have to take much time either, but giving them the confidence to come into the class and ask about something on the news that they are aware of is really important.
2. Don’t worry about being an expert on the subject yourself
And don’t let a lack of knowledge on a particular event put you off allowing pupils to discuss it. Often I find putting your hands up and saying “I don’t know about that” builds confidence in pupils to do the same, which is an important learning experience in itself. Look up reputable news sources in front of them so they can see how to read widely on a topic.
3. Play devil’s advocate - but carefully
Sometimes there are multiple perspectives on an issue and we should make sure all those are heard so pupils can make up their own minds, but we must be very careful to avoid the trap of presenting some arguments side by side as if of equal weight. For decades that was our approach to teaching about climate change - seeking to present balanced arguments when in reality there really was no balance.
Above all, ensuring our classrooms are safe spaces where all pupils feel equally able to volunteer an opinion, and where challenge is always nurturing, is fundamental to handling controversial issues effectively. We need to recognise young people come from all sorts of backgrounds and bring with them a multitude of experiences, some of which will make them acutely sensitive to particular topics.
It can be uncomfortable to discuss these issues. If done well, however, it will challenge us as the teacher as much as the pupils, and may even challenge the parents and carers.
In an increasingly complex and worrying world, it is vital that we give young people the safe space to think about their role as citizens and engage with controversy head on.
Michael Shanks is a modern studies teacher in Scotland. He tweets @mgshanks
