Civil Discourse

Teaching into civil discourse often requires students to engage with complex and potentially controversial issues, especially as they move into upper elementary, middle, and high school. This includes conversations about current events and local, state, and national elections. 

We understand that doing this work in our current climate is not easy, given the potential range of beliefs in our classrooms and the often divisive nature of daily news and social media feeds.  This work, however, may be more important now than ever before. We must teach our students to listen to others, recognize bias, and engage in civil conversations about important ideas.  A teacher's role is to support this thinking and classroom discussion, in an overtly balanced manner, rather than guiding students toward a particular belief or opinion.

The following questions must be answered before teaching into civil discourse.

1. Is it connected to the board-approved curriculum? 

2. Is the department, grade level, and PLC in agreement with teaching the content?

3. Is there administrator support?