Teaching controversial issues raises challenges for both teachers and school directors.


However, being able to discuss sensitive and controversial issues in a respectful way is a vital skill in a democratic culture.

Schools must be places where students feel safe to engage in debates with people who have different opinions. Through the careful management of discussions on controversial issues, schools can promote freedom of expression, as well as inclusion, tolerance, and human rights and prevent, or counter, the use of hate speech by students.

To achieve this, a school action plan on managing controversial issues – which provides staff training – should be adopted as a priority.
 

Facts & Figures

71% of teachers and school leaders surveyed agreed that it is very important that all students in their school express their views openly, even when their views might be controversial.[1]

In response to the question, ‘How valuable is the study of the Holocaust for primary children?’ 88% of teachers viewed Holocaust teaching to be either ‘worthwhile’ or ‘very valuable’ to the primary pupil, although only 48% had actually taught it.[2]
 

What are controversial issues?

Controversial issues are issues which arouse strong feelings and divide communities.

Issues like these can arise anywhere at any time. They vary from the local to the global – from minarets to climate change. They also vary from place to place, e.g., gay marriage is relatively uncontentious in some countries, but highly controversial in others. Some are long-standing controversies, e.g., the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, the Israel-Palestine conflict and the ‘Kurdish issue’ in Turkey; while others are more recent, e.g., refugees, violent extremism and transgender issues.

What all these issues have in common is that they are complex, not easily settled by appeal to evidence alone and highly emotive – so much so that people often have difficulty discussing them rationally.
 

Why is it important to address controversial issues at school?

While it might be tempting for schools to try to shy away from issues like these, this is neither beneficial nor practical.

Discussing controversial issues helps students with different backgrounds and lifestyles to learn to live and work together peacefully and respectfully. It encourages them to listen to each other and talk through their differences sensitively. It also challenges them to think critically about their own beliefs and values and gives them confidence and skills to express these publicly.

Talking through difficult issues together develops a number of important democratic competences, e.g., openness to other cultures and beliefs, analytical and critical thinking skills, flexibility and adaptability, and tolerance of ambiguity - all of which lie at the heart of the Council of Europe Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture.

Handled well, it breaks down barriers and helps to defuse social tension between opposing groups, both in school and the wider community.

Exploring controversial issues has educational as well as personal and social benefits. Issues like these help to define some of the major social, political, economic and moral fault-lines in contemporary life and underpin academic learning in many school subjects.

The strongest argument for addressing controversial issues explicitly, however, is that, in practice, they simply cannot be avoided. If teachers do not raise these issues, their students will.
 

Through training in the teaching of controversial issues, I have found the courage to discuss openly with my students issues I thought I would never be able to do, e.g., about sexual abuse and the porn industry.”  Teacher, Iceland

What are the challenges?

The biggest challenge is creating a school ethos in which students genuinely feel they can speak openly about their concerns without fear of vilification or ridicule.

Creating such an ethos requires a whole-school approach. It includes among other things:

  • teachers having the confidence and skills to handle discussion of difficult issues in the classroom, e.g., knowing how to deal with their own prejudices and biases, protect vulnerable individuals and marginalised groups, present issues even-handedly, cope with a lack of expert knowledge, and handle spontaneous or unexpected questions and remarks constructively;
  • school leaders encouraging their staff to take on issues which are controversial and maintaining a consistency of approach across the school, e.g., by providing leadership, professional development, opportunities for team teaching, guidance and support, and risk management;
  • parents and local communities feeling assured that the school is on their side, e.g., being confident the school will not misrepresent or try to undermine their views or culture.
     

How can schools get active?

A good way for schools to begin is by:

  • identifying where controversial issues already feature in the school curriculum and discussing how these are currently handled, e.g., evolution, climate change or animal testing in Science;
  • considering new opportunities for introducing controversial issues into other school subjects and how they might be incorporated into teaching, e.g., the use and abuse of social statistics in Maths;
  • developing ground rules for classroom discussion which guarantee everyone a voice to express their opinion and encourage respect for whoever wishes to speak;
  • creating a small support group to help teachers develop techniques for managing discussion of difficult issues, e.g., how to ‘de-personalise’ an issue by using a story or historical parallel, or helping students to consider alternative perspectives by putting them in other people’s shoes;
  • liaising with students and parents to ensure specific issues are handled fairly and with appropriate methods;
  • introducing more opportunities for discussion in school life and decision-making generally, e.g., in parents’ meetings, staff meetings and pupil parliaments.
     

[1] ‘Free to speak, Safe to learn – Democratic schools for all’ Survey, First Trends, 2018

[2] Cowan & Maitles, ‘Feature or Footnote? Teachers’ attitudes towards the teaching of the Holocaust in primary schools in Scotland’.

Resources on Addressing Controversial Issues

Multimedia

Official texts

Policy documents

Related schools projects

Back Experimental Senior High School of University of Macedonia

Address: Proin Stratopedo StrempeniotI, 56701 Neapoli, Thessaloniki

Country: Greece

 School website

Project: Our voice is our power!

Working language during the project:

  • Greek
  • English
     

Themes of the Council of Europe campaign “FREE to SPEAK, SAFE to LEARN - Democratic Schools for All” covered:

  • Making children’s and students’ voices heard
  • Addressing controversial issues
  • Preventing violence and bullying
  • Tackling discrimination
  • Improving well-being at school
     

Competences from the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (CDC) addressed and where / how they were integrated:

  • Co-operation skills
    Activities and creation of educational material.
  • Respect
    Activities and creation of educational material [eg a radio show that was broadcast by a Greek national radio station (ERT3]) .
  • Knowledge and critical understanding of the world:politics, law, human rights, culture, cultures, religions, history, media, economies, environment, sustainability
    Activities and creation of videos and other educational material about human rights (anti-bullying), culture, cultures and history (Europe and other countries), environment.
     

Target group age range:

  • 15-19
     

Level of education:

  • Upper secondary education

Short description of the project:

This project focuses on the idea of active citizens in the European Union which was implemented in a Senior High School during the school year 2017-2018, within the framework of the "Ambassador School Programme", "Teachers 4 Europe" and eTwinning programmes. Two teachers of different specializations collaborated with students from all grades in order to foster their competences for democratic culture and become active citizens on themes such as human rights, democracy and environment. With the help of experiential techniques and technology, and with the motivation of some older videos and sites/blogs that the two teachers have created in previous years with their older students, they created some new videos, a radio show that was broadcast by a Greek national radio station, some new sites/blogs and other educational material.
 

Aims/objectives

Τhis project aimed to familiarise pupils with the European Union and the concept of active citizens in the European Union. It invited students and teachers to reflect on current problems (human rights, refugees, environmental problems, bullying, democratic & digital citizenship etc.) and act upon them as active citizens. Moreover, it created opportunities for social interaction of young people by fostering dialogue among students from different countries and developing a mutual understanding.
 

Expected results/outcomes

During the evaluation of the practice, the teachers observed that students: a) managed to successfully process and reformulate the information provided through the project, b) developed their decision-making ability, c) became familiar with modern technology, d) reinforced their active involvement.

The knowledge provided during the activity was related to real life, the protagonists being the students themselves: without their involvement, nothing could be accomplished, and no educational goal could be reached. Both the teachers and the students embraced different ways of perceiving and interpreting reality and committed themselves to using them. More particularly, the students were asked to talk about respect, religious notions and European values and to demonstrate what they can actually do with all they have learned, through their own work.

The project focused on active citizenship, migration, human rights, awareness of policies for migration, cultivating the interdisciplinary spirit among students and teachers, collaboration and resilience and learning the values of respect. The students discussed, criticized, became aware of the current situation and realized that we have to work together for a free, socially just and democratic Europe of the future that places its respect on the environment and humanity as its main priority.
 

Changes

Both the teachers and the students adopted such an attitude that enabled them to view the world in various different ways: to describe it, to interpret it, to check it, to experience it, to analyse it, to depict it, to reenact it. And all this was done in more ways than one, using various “languages”.

Acquired skills: educational material study, digital literacy, inclusion, cultivated empathy through activities, engaged problem solving, critical thinking, improved language skills and international collaboration, encouragement of interest in science, performance–based assessments.
 

Challenges you faced

The challenges that we faced were to enhance the understanding of students for the important role they play in interpreting the diversity of the "other" through a holistic approach of diversity through research, promotion and study of personal experiences, needs and desires of the students themselves.

As far as our school is concerned, the students were accepted after taking and passing a special examination or currently at random (with a draw) and, therefore, they do not necessarily come from the area around the school, but from various municipal districts. At the very beginning of the school year, an attempt has been made to detect and accommodate the various student learning styles by taking into account the students’ extracurricular activities.

Moreover, we have tried to cultivate European consciousness and identity through the active participation of pupils on European platforms and the empowerment of European values and the acquaintance with the religious, cultural and geographical diversity of Europe and the contact of students with its arts and culture, so that Europe can take a more meaningful approach, especially in the difficult times we are experiencing with fanaticism, nationalism and homogenization.

Finally, an attempt was made to exploit the pre-existing knowledge of pupils. The research hypothesis was that students would be better met in a familiar and popular interface (digital maps) and would feel closer to the new information and European values. Cartographer-students were asked to reconfigure the religious and cultural past of the people of Europe and link it to today.
 

Time-frame of the project:

During the school year 2017-2018 (some parts were created during the school years 2015-16 and 2016-17 and were used as educational material for the school year 2017-18)
 

Council of Europe materials on citizenship and human rights education used while preparing or implementing your practice:

  • Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture
  • Living Democracy - manuals for teachers
  • Addressing violence in schools through EDC/HRE
  • All Different – All Equal
  • Managing controversy
  • Teaching controversial issues-training pack
  • Compass
  • Compasito
  • Human Rights and Democracy Start with Us – Charter for All
  • Freedom(s) - Learning activities for secondary schools on the case law of the European
  • How all Teachers Can Support EDC/HRE: A Framework for the Development of Competences
  • Multimedia Material (ex. video “Beat Bullying”, series of cartoons “Democracy and Human Rights at School”, video “Corporal punishment at school: how two parents decided to change things”)
See also