Teaching Controversy

This study utilized the term "teacher as stranger" from Maxine Greene's (1973) Teacher as Stranger to explore how teachers teach contemporary controversial public issues in Taiwan (e.g., national identity, sovereignty, and ethnic issues). Using a case study design, this study documents how six social studies teachers make curricular decisions about teaching controversial public issues and create possibilities for their students to imaginatively engage with controversial public issues. Findings illuminate that these teachers challenge the stereotype of Asian teachers as always following a centralized curriculum; they instead collaborate authentic curricular resources and decenter the exam-centric and curriculum-centric classroom space. In sum, this study, refracted through the national context of Taiwan, helps us understand the possibility of Taiwanese teachers' curricular-instructional decisions and increased autonomy and authority.

Teaching university students through discussing controversial issues has the potential to build civic capacity and political tolerance. Throughout 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. The rub for discussion-based teaching, however, is that its orchestration is as difficult as it is important. Many faculty members find it intimidating. C. Roland Christensen, who helped develop case-method teaching at Harvard University, described this kind of teacher as " planner, host, mod-erator, devil' s advocate, fellow-student, and judge—a potentially confusing 19 2

Pedro TEIXEIRA As relações entre diversidade e a discussão de temas controversos: desafios atuais para a escola RESUMO O presente trabalho se configura como uma reflexão teórica sobre o ensino de questões controversas e seus desafios atuais. Pesquisadores e políticas públicas educacionais no Brasil e no mundo têm destacado a importância de se explorar a pluralidade de pensamentos acerca de questões controversas. Incialmente, em uma perspectiva intercultural crítica, argumentamos que, dada a diversidade de visões de mundo, crenças religiosas, gêneros, orientações sexuais e raças nas sociedades contemporâneas e nas escolas, o ensino e o debate de controvérsias na educação básica se tornam alvo de disputas. Se, de acordo com Hess (2009), a própria definição do que é ou não controverso já é, em si, permeada de conflitos, determinar quais desses temas serão incluídos nos currículos escolares também é. Tal cenário se mostra ainda mais complexo em nosso país nos últimos anos pelo avanço de pautas conservadoras no congresso nacional e de projetos de lei como o Escola sem Partido, tendo em vista, principalmente, as concepções moralistas de sexualidade e as crenças religiosas de grupos conservadores. Nesse sentido, embora os defensores dessas bandeiras argumentem uma pretensa abertura à pluralidade de ideias, a análise de seus argumentos revela profunda rejeição a valores e conhecimentos distintos daqueles por eles defendidos. Essa postura mostra-se ameaçadora ao ensino e ao desenvolvimento de estratégias pedagógicas que abordem temas controvertidos na escola básica. Assim, indicamos possibilidades para pensar a superação desses obstáculos em sala de aula.

There are many things that can be done to educate young people about controversial topics - including historical monuments - in schools. At the same time, however, we argue that there is little warrant for optimism concerning the educational potential of classroom instruction given the interpretative frame of the state-approved history curriculum; the onerous institutional constraints under which school teachers must labour; the unusual constellation of talents history teachers must possess; the frequent absence of marginalized voices in these conversations; and finally, the not unlikely indifference - if not outright hostility - expressed by far too many members of the dominant group. For these reasons, we think it best to expand the scope of educational possibilities one is willing to consider.

This study utilized the term "teacher as stranger" from Maxine Greene's (1973) Teacher as Stranger to explore how teachers teach contemporary controversial public issues in Taiwan (e.g., national identity, sovereignty, and ethnic issues). Using a case study design, this study documents how six social studies teachers make curricular decisions about teaching controversial public issues and create possibility for their students to imaginatively engage controversial public issues. Findings illuminate that teachers challenge the stereotype of Asian teachers as always following centralized curriculum; these teachers instead collaborate authentic curricular resources and decenter the exam-centric and curriculum-centric classroom space. In sum, this study, refracted through the national context of Taiwan, helps us understand the possibility of Taiwanese teachers’ curricular-instructional decisions and increased autonomy and authority.