IPDA England host workshop on Preparing for Teaching Controversial Issues

IPDA England held this event 13 July 2022 focusing on Preparing for Teaching Controversial Issues. The session combined a presentation and workshop facilitated by Dr Judy Pace.

About the workshop

Teaching controversial issues in the classroom is now more urgent and fraught than ever as we confront political, environmental, and human rights crises. Despite evidence that teaching controversy is critical, educators often avoid it. How then can we prepare and support teachers to undertake this essential but difficult work?

The purpose of the event is to explore how Teachers and Teacher Educators can teach controversial issues and prepare new teachers to take up this practice. The event aims to explore key strategies, contextual factors, and critical policy questions to consider. It is grounded in findings from Judy Pace’s book, Hard Questions: Learning to Teach Controversial Issues, based on a cross-national qualitative study. It examines teacher educators’ efforts to prepare preservice teachers for teaching controversial issues and preservice teachers’ uptake of what they learned. It presents four detailed cases of teacher preparation in three politically divided societies: Northern Ireland, England, and the United States.

In her research project, funded by the Spencer Foundation, Judy observed methods courses in citizenship, history, and social studies within Post Graduate Teacher Education programs. She interviewed preservice teachers during coursework and after their school placements about the pedagogical tools they learned and their efforts to put them into practice. Judy developed a grounded theory of “contained risk-taking” and identified factors that supported and constrained the teaching and learning process.  She has conducted professional development on teaching controversial issues in several countries and now teaches a course to masters and doctoral students at the University of San Francisco’s School of Education.

Programme

18.00: Introduction and welcome

18.10: Research on Teaching Controversial Issues – Contexts, Needs, and Challenges

18:30: Framework for Reflective Practice & Contained Risk-taking

18:40: Activity: Selecting and Framing Controversial Issues

19:10 Bio Break

19:15: Activity – Choosing Pedagogical Methods

19:45: Q&A and Debrief

Dr Judy Pace

Dr. Judy Pace is a Professor of Teacher Education at the University of San Francisco. Her research examines the connections among democracy, diversity, and classroom teaching, and how these are shaped by social, political, and cultural contexts of schooling and society. Her latest book is Hard Questions: Learning to Teach Controversial Issues. She has also published The Charged Classroom: Predicaments and Possibilities for Democratic Teaching; Classroom Authority: Theory, Research, and Practice; and Educating Democratic Citizens in Troubled Times: Qualitative Studies of Current Efforts. Judy earned her doctorate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and worked at Project Zero on project-based curriculum, portfolio assessment, teaching for understanding, and comprehensive school reform. Before that she taught in special education and progressive K-12 settings. She is currently involved in professional development efforts on teaching controversial issues. Her new website is at https://teachingcontroversies.com.