The last posting reviewed
the elements of an instructional approach known as issue-centered teaching. In a few words, the approach has teachers
present controversial issues or topics – usually in the form of questions – so
that students can research them, reflect on the information they discover,
develop positions regarding the individual questions, defend their position(s)
as they interact with other students, and settle on defensible positions as to
what should be done regarding each issue.
Of course, since a final
position is never final, it is always subject to further change to accommodate
any new information the students might come across or any changes they might
experience regarding their relevant values.
In all of this deliberation, students are given the opportunity to
clarify their values concerning the issue under consideration.
As that posting
emphasized, this approach should be fairly apolitical in that instruction
simply presents the issues for student consideration along with relevant
information, but not limiting that information to one side of any ensuing
debate. The aim is to present students
with all or nearly all publicly available information without biasing some
sources over others.
The approach’s content
and scope seem to be guided only by a desire to present students with issues
that seem contentious at a given time, that contemporary voters are called upon
to consider as they engage in their civic duties. Supporters of this approach claim, as just
alluded to, that it offers students the opportunity to clarify their related
values. The approach also strives to
have students develop their advanced intellectual abilities.[1]
What this general review
indicates is that the approach seems to be fairly neutral. On the surface, one might interpret
“issued-centered” inquiry as merely a restatement of the type of inquiry Lawrence
Kohlberg,[2]
Louis E. Raths,[3] or
Fred M. Newmann and Donald W. Oliver[4]
called for in their values education models. If applied, this blogger foresees
that what will be studied by students are the “front page” issues of a
particular day. That is, this
instruction will deal with issues that “sell” – they are accepted as what
people care about at a given time.
Much of the instructional
thrust of many former movements in social studies and civics, as was advocated
by the New Social Studies of the 1960s, was in this vein. Its popularity among
academics seems to vary from year to year, but overall, they have given this
type of pedagogy a favorable standing. Such
approaches would be more in line with progressive advocates of the natural
rights construct.
But what this blogger
believes is that the rationale for this approach is a bit modest. They might
not all consider themselves critical pedagogues, but their political leanings
do at least seem sympathetic to the critical position. As this blogger stated
in the last posting, he considers issue-centered approach as critical light. Yet, those who support it do
wish to maintain a distinction between critical pedagogy and the issue-centered
instructional approach. They represent
this following sentiment:
Issue-centered learning is organized around
existing and emerging societal and environmental global issues (i.e., water,
health, poverty, climate, pollution, migration, energy, renewable resources) on
a global and local scale and ensures that students develop the …
characteristics, skills and competencies that complements the functional
knowledge they learn and enables them to become leaders for a sustainable
future …[5]
For example, advocates argue
for the use of conflict topics, as opposed to consensus topics, to stir student
inquiry.[6]
The gist of that position seems to associate conflict topics with critical
pedagogic concerns. Such an approach is highly congruent with the Freirian
curricular thrust which was reviewed in earlier postings and is an unambiguous
example of the critical approach.
As used in most of the issue-centered
literature, the inquiries this
approach encourages has led teachers to present their students with what this
blogger considers as being euphemisms for critical inquiries. Through the years, reviewing these issues or
topics, one can detect a definite trend which is reflected in the following exemplary
questions:
•
What is a legitimate
government and where does its power originate?
•
When should governmental
authority be ignored or rejected?
•
Should student
newspapers have the same right to freedom of the press as other newspapers?
•
Should a student write
a letter to the principal to protest censorship?
•
Should the colonists
have protested British actions with violent demonstrations?[7]
What are not found
are examples that might take the following form:
•
Should the running of
the student newspaper be considered a part of the school curriculum and subject
to the policies defined by the school’s educators?
•
Should school
administrators set up well-organized processes to consider student concerns at
the appropriate times?
•
Should the British
authorities have used coercive force to put down the illegal activities of the
colonists during, for example, the Boston Tea Party?
•
Should the state
prohibit the termination of the life of a fetus and protect that human’s right
to life?
Please don't believe that
this blogger would use this second set of questions in a classroom; he uses
them here to make a point.
The examples offered by advocates
of this approach usually exemplify a politically liberal or left of center
bias. They all question potential oppressive activities by those in power. As
one reads through that literature, one can find similarly leftist
examples. As a matter of fact, they tend
to surpass a liberal bias and can be considered a critical light bias (a more
leftist view than what most would consider “liberal” biases).
On the other hand, the
above examples offered as alternatives have a definite rightist bias. The point
is that even if the methodology used maintains an “open discussion” format, the
issues or content presented and the language used in that presentation,
particularly if it is on an ongoing basis, can and would promote an ideological
bias.
Freire,[8]
in his instructional approach, is at least very open and direct about this
point; he is out to fight oppression on people by the upper class. An open
discussion format utilized by the “issued-centered” approach does not, through
its questioning, eliminate a bias which can be judged to have an indoctrinating
effect.
In citing the criticism
of a social reconstruction or reconceptualization curriculum, William H.
Schubert writes,
If they would
become powerful enough to do so, the desire of educators to foist their
political beliefs on children and youth is tantamount to indoctrination of a
very serious kind. It sparks the memory of youth in totalitarian nations who
are brainwashed to support a revolution or to spy on their own families and
report infractions of rules. Even in less severe cases, the question arises as
to the right of educators to play deity in the dictating of social change.[9]
Let this blogger be
clear; he is of the firm belief that any civics instruction cannot totally
avoid being biased. If nothing else, the instructional questions teachers ask
will give them away. The aim is to be honest. This blogger doesn’t believe
issue-centered advocates, at least as indicated by such text as that which is sponsored
by the professional organization of social studies educators, are being honest
in terms of their “openness.”[10]
This disinformation might
not be intentional, but it is there, nonetheless. Perhaps being considered dishonest
is too strong a term; after all, a lie resides in the attempt to deceive.[11] But one can easily remind the supporters of
critical pedagogy or its off-shoot, issue-centered curriculum, of their own
admonition toward others: there is no such thing as a neutral approach to
education, especially civics education.
Among the apparent
problems of civics education is: how can one design a program of civics that is
non-ideological, except for being committed to democratic principles? If a
political orientation is unavoidable, would it not be democratically better to
acknowledge the fact, identify the political basis of the curriculum, and have
that basis, as much as possible, be true to open deliberation as conceptualized
by the nation’s constitutional makeup?
[1] Anna S. Ochoa-Becker,
“Introduction,” in Handbook on
Teaching Social Issues: NCSS Bulletin 93, eds. Ronald W. Evans and David
Warren Saxe (Washington, DC: National Council of the Social Studies, 1996), 1.
[2] Lawrence Kohlberg, “The
Cognitive-Development Approach to Moral Education,” in Curriculum Planning: A Contemporary Approach, eds. Forrest W.
Parkay and Glenn Hass (Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 2000), 136-148.
[3] Louis E. Raths, Merrill Harmin, and
Sidney B. Simon, Values and teaching: Working
with Values in the Classroom (Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill Publishing
Co., 1966).
[4]
Fred M. Newmann and Donald W. Oliver, Clarifying
Public Controversy: An Approach to Teaching Social Studies (Boston, MA:
Little, Brown, and Company, 1970).
[5] Katrin Muff, “Tag Archives: Issue-Centered Education,” Positive Impact
Blog (August 28, 2012), accessed May 24, 2023, https://positiveimpact.blog/tag/issue-centered-education/.
[6] Cleo H. Cherryholmes, “Critical Pedagogy
and Social Education,” in Handbook on Teaching Social Issues: NCSS Bulletin 93, eds. Ronald W. Evans
and David Warren Saxe (Washington, DC:
National Council of the Social Studies, 1996), 75-80,
[7] These questions are offered in Ronald W.
Evans, Fred M. Newmann, and David Warren Saxe, “Defining Issues-Centered
Education,” in Handbook on Teaching
Social Issues: NCSS Bulletin 93,
eds. Ronald W. Evans and David Warren Saxe (Washington, DC: National
Council of the Social Studies, 1996), 2.
[8] Paulo
Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
(New York, NY: Continuum Publishing Company, 1999).
[9] William H. Schubert,
Curriculum: Perspective, Paradigm, and
Possibility (New York, NY: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1986), 32.
[10] As exemplified by Ronald W. Evans
and David Warren Saxe, editors, Handbook
on Teaching Social Issues: NCSS Bulletin 93, eds. (Washington, DC: National Council of the Social
Studies, 1996).
[11]Perhaps the words honest and dishonesty are too strong. I
believe these educators should know better, but I don't think they necessarily
believe they are attempting to persuade their students of a particular
political ideology. More likely, there is a lack of reflection regarding the
use of this approach and its potentially indoctrinating effects.
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