TEACHING CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES; THE NEW AIM TO TEACHERS

BY FREDY HERNAN RODRIGUEZ FORERO

Nowadays, there are a lot of issues that involves young peoples mind directly or
indirectly. In classroom, students possess those kinds of emotions that are strongly
related to environmental, social, educational and political issues. In this sense,
primary and high school teachers should motivate students to feel free to share
their own viewpoint in order to help them to understand controversial topics so that
they can develop their personal attitudes towards social, moral and cultural issues.
How teaching controversial issues is helpful to reach this goal?

First of all, it is relevant to mention that through teaching controversial issues,

students become more informed about the current situation so that they can
become more active citizens. By doing that, students indirectly take part in political
discussions which can led to take part in political processes or political
participations. One recent example of this was the high school students support in
the protest carried out on August 29th in Bogot. What is more, studying debatable
issues such as social or political ones, provide the opportunity to combine
knowledge, evidence, theory and ideas, so that students can experience the hard
realities of the real world in a safety environment like classrooms are.

In addition, teaching polemic topics help to students develop non-violent strategies

for dealing with conflict. According to a research carried out by the International
Wolf Center in 2008, teaching controversial issues allows students create
opportunities to develop their social skills such as learning how to listen to one
another and to handle their anger and frustrations without resorting to violence. It
is so significant thanks to the help of making through debates, forums, handlings,
problem solving, and critical thinking activities. Besides, students are encouraged
to listen to other viewpoints in order to organize new arguments to produce
controversy points. This is where teachers should provide neutral grounds for
rational discourse and objective study to create problem solving activities as the
previously mentioned.

In sum, educators have to motive into students to strengthen of their personal

attitudes through effective teaching strategies such debates, round tables, or plays
in which students make contributions or make presentations to define facts, items,
opinions or views in relation to whatever polemic topic to make critical citizens and
break down such inequality.

Resources

International Wolf Center. Teaching controversial issues, 2008

sourcefiles/teaching- about- controversial- issues.pdf