If managing a regular classroom can sometimes feel like herding cats, tackling classroom conversations about politics, identity, or other divisive issues can feel more like corralling a pack of snarling Tasmanian devils—while surrounded by sleeping lions.
A daunting task for any educator.
“I’m deeply concerned about the increasing polarization in our country, particularly the way it encourages people to see those who disagree with them not only as wrong but as existential threats to their identity, their values, their ways of being in and seeing the world,” one educator told the EdWeek Research Center.
This project is part of a special report called Big Ideas in which EdWeek reporters, the EdWeek Research Center, and contributing researchers ask hard questions about K-12 education’s biggest challenges and offer insights based on their extensive coverage and expertise.
In a nationally representative K-12 survey conducted this summer, more than 3 out of 4 educators told the EdWeek Research Center that they believe schools have a responsibility to teach students how to have respectful conversations about important topics with people they disagree with.
Across grade spans and curriculum, nearly a third of teachers said they have changed or skipped topics in the past year because they feared backlash from classroom controversy.
“I love my small district, but I am also very aware that everything I say and do is under a microscope,” said one teacher surveyed. “I find that it is harder than ever to share with my students for fear of possible repercussions.”
Moreover, classroom disagreements among students too often mirror or spill over from adult arguments in school board meetings and social media.
“It’s hard not to be disheartened” by increasing polarization, said another educator, who worried for “teachers who are trying to thread an impossible needle, as families and local politicians hold schools to higher standards of behavior and discourse than they adhere to in their own daily lives.”
An administrator reported that often conflicts in districts are “exacerbated by a lack of structures, coherence, collaboration, and coordination” needed for students, staff, and parents alike to address divisive topics respectfully.
While many teachers reported avoiding potentially divisive subjects if they aren’t directly related to their subject area, one math teacher argued, “contentious topics are best handled openly and honestly” across the curriculum.
The math teacher regularly uses average global temperatures as an example of an increasing function in algebra and has not received any student or staff complaints. “I make an effort to refrain from judging student or parent opinions, keep my opinions outside the classroom, and just provide mathematical data,” the teacher said. “I allow my students to reach their own conclusions about the data and ‘show work’ by explaining their responses.”
In fact, the vast majority of teachers surveyed who did discuss divisive topics in their classroom faced little to no retaliation or formal consequences. The chart below details some teachers’ experiences in the field.
Data analysis for this article was provided by the EdWeek Research Center. Learn more about the center’s work.
