On Teaching Controversial Subjects
Leave little kids alone and teach older kids to think for themselves.
I’ve been teaching philosophy for about twenty years, and philosophy is full of controversy. In my own introductory philosophy class, I talk about the existence of God, abortion, animal rights, free will, freedom of speech, political libertarianism, Marxism, and more. So I’ve got experience teaching controversial topics, and I’d like to share a few of my thoughts about how to do it well. I believe that the ideas I’m going to present here would be very helpful if they were widely adopted in HSE schools.
I want to start by saying that I do think that controversial material should be taught. There are ways of teaching such material without indoctrinating students, and HSE would do well to consider adopting the methods I describe below. But, for example, I’m not in favor of banning all talk of Critical Race Theory from the schools. For one thing, if we don’t teach our older kids how to think about this kind of material, then they won’t be prepared to think for themselves in college, when parents won’t be able to provide as much guidance as they can while kids are still at home. For another thing, I believe in freedom of speech, and I believe that the truth will prevail in the marketplace of ideas when there is true freedom of inquiry. So we should teach high school students to think well rather than shielding them from what we take to be false or controversial or offensive. There are lots of good arguments for this view, and they’re not new: they’re just the old ones that philosopher John Stuart Mill gave in 1859. If you’ve never read Mill on free speech, I recommend that you do so; you can find a free (and beautifully illustrated!) copy of his work here.
However, my view on this, as it applies in the HSE district, has to be qualified in at least a few ways.
First of all, small children are not ready to learn controversial material. They aren’t yet at a stage of development where they can think for themselves and come to reasoned conclusions that may differ from the views of their teachers. They are vulnerable to brain washing since they are sweet and little and they will believe whatever you tell them. So if you’re a teacher and this is what you’re doing to our cute little kids: Stop it, you’re behaving very badly! Such behavior is morally wrong, especially if you are undermining parents’ strongly held values and their authority over their own children.
A second important point is that, if you’re going to teach controversial material, you need to have expertise on the topic. It’s not acceptable, for example, to teach controversial material about the psychology of human relationships, or about the relationship between our brains and behavior, or about suicide, if you have no expertise whatsoever in psychology or neurology. This is the sort of thing I’ve been seeing with the district’s SEL/SEEL lessons. I think it is entirely appropriate for (say) a mathematics teacher who is asked to teach on these topics to simply refuse on the grounds that he or she has no relevant expertise. I would say that, if you are compelled by the district to teach material on which you have no expertise, you should explain to the students that you cannot vouch for truth of the information being presented, and then go on to encourage a skeptical stance among the students toward the material. After all, it takes expertise to handle controversial material well, since you have to know both sides of the issue, and you need to have a strong enough grasp of the material to correctly judge whether the resources being utilized are of high quality. If you don’t have those abilities, it seems to me that your best move is to teach the students to be skeptical. Also, I recommend that you be brave and tell those in charge that what you are being asked to do is inappropriate.
Still another important point is that material should not be chosen just because it is controversial or because it is relevant to a political outcome you support. Teach the students history, or literature, or science, or whatever your subject is. Sometimes controversy and debate play a role in that task. But you should not be seeking controversy for its own sake, or for the sake of “making a difference” politically. Your job is education, not political advocacy, and not entertainment.
In slogan form: teach the big kids how to think, and teach the little kids how to read.
A couple of clarifications are helpful at this point.
First, what do I mean by “little kids”? We probably have to draw a somewhat arbitrary line. My sense is that the line needs to be drawn somewhere around the seventh grade, which is the age at which kids seem to start to think for themselves. But maybe people with more expertise in human development could weigh in here. I mostly want to say that we should draw such a line somewhere so that little kids are protected from brain washing, but older kids get a chance to learn how engage with controversy.
Second, what do I mean by “controversial material,” and how can we tell when that’s what we are dealing with? Here are three criteria that I think will basically settle the matter for nearly all practical purposes:
Is what you want to teach in conflict with the religious or moral beliefs of a significant number of parents?
Is what you want to teach in conflict with the beliefs of a major political party?
Is what you want to teach something that experts in the field disagree about?
I think if you can answer yes to any of these three questions, you’re probably dealing with controversial material, and it is inappropriate to teach it to small children without parental permission.
Here are some examples that would plausibly be classified as controversial material by my criteria: Critical Race Theory (yes on all three criteria), the 1619 Project (yes on criterion 3), the progressive view of gender (yes on all three), the view that love between a husband and wife should not be unconditional (yes on criterion 1), Marxism (yes on all three), the value of “implicit bias” training (yes on criterion 3).
So I think my criteria pretty effectively get at the topics that are controversial. And don’t forget: I’m not saying you can’t teach this stuff, I’m just saying that you need to have expertise to teach it, and you need to teach it to older kids, not little kids, and you need to do it carefully. What do I mean by that?
My suggestion is that you should try to follow these guidelines:
Your task is to get the students to understand the perspectives of all sides of the issue to such a degree that they could explain each side to the satisfaction of a proponent of that side.
Your task is not to convince them that one side or another is correct, though you should encourage them to try to figure out for themselves which side is correct.
Assign readings (or other materials) which proponents of the view you oppose would identify as the highest-quality sources for understanding their perspective. Of course, you should also assign the best material for your own side.
Go ahead and tell students what your own opinion is, but warn them that they should not uncritically agree with you. Instead, tell them you want to be as fair as possible in how you present the material, and you want to encourage them to be critical of your presentation, scrutinizing it for fairness.
Be careful that you’re grading the students fairly when they take a position you disagree with. Try hard to assess them on the clarity of their presentation, their understanding of the various positions, the rigor of their argumentation, and the originality of their ideas, rather than on whether you agree with the final conclusion they come to. Make sure they know it is ok to disagree with you.
In addition, when dealing with minors, I would encourage teachers to be as transparent as possible with parents about what will be taught and how it will be taught. You could easily do this by sending a message to all parents at the beginning of the year. Transparency creates trust, and I can tell you that parents I know would really appreciate this sort of courtesy in the current climate, including the ability to opt out of the controversial material if they deem it inappropriate.
Finally, I want to note that sometimes controversial material isn’t taught, it’s presupposed. For example, this is what happens when a teacher hangs political propaganda on the wall in his classroom, or the demographic information on a form includes a question about preferred pronouns. This is gaslighting, since it treats something extremely controversial as if it were common knowledge. This is not how a good teacher approaches controversy. If you want to ask about pronouns, then just ask the students whether there’s anything you need to know about how they would like to be addressed. That addresses any practical concerns, but does not imply that everyone who disagrees with your extremely controversial view of gender is obviously wrong. Or, if you want to talk about your extremely controversial view of gender, then follow the steps above and give some air time to the opposing view, which you should present with charity and expertise, asking the students to think for themselves about the issue. You could for example teach them using these articles by MIT philosopher Alex Byrne, which are really accessible and present an opposing view in an intelligent way. In short: teach, don’t presuppose. And leave your propaganda at home; it has no place in the classroom.
If these steps were followed, I think it would help to lower the temperature in the school district right now. It’s hard to know for sure exactly how this sort of policy would effect the SEL/SEEL program, since the district is currently hiding these lessons from parents like me. But, based on what little I have seen, I suspect that my suggestions would mean that at least some of the currently planned SEEL lessons would have to go right into the trash can, since they are controversial, one-sided, and academically low-quality. Additionally, the district would also need to basically delete the current Equity and Inclusion webpage, since it serves as a perfect example of exactly how I’m suggesting that a school district should not present controversial material: it’s obviously one-sided and presents extremely controversial ideas as if they were conventional wisdom.
Do you agree with what I have said here? If so, you might want to consider sending this post to your child’s teachers at the beginning of the year and tell them you would like them to take this approach. Make sure you get an answer. And if they won’t agree, you may need to request a different teacher or even consider pulling your kid from the school. And if you do pull your kid from HSE schools, make sure to let everyone know what you’re doing and why.