Tackling Controversial Issues in the Primary School

Facing Life's Challenges with Your Learners

Richard Woolley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781136947551
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

How do you broach family values with seven year olds? Can you help young children understand racism? Can you avoid bringing your own prejudices into the classroom?

Talking effectively about controversial issues with young children is a challenge facing every primary school teacher. Tackling Controversial Issues in the Primary School provides teachers with support and guidance as you engage with the more tricky questions and topics you and your pupils encounter.

Illuminated with case studies and examples of how teachers and children have confronted issues together, this book helps you understand your own perspectives and provides fresh approaches for the primary classroom.

It considers how best to work with parents and carers, whole-school policies for tackling issues, and ideas for circle time, setting up international links, school councils and buddying systems. The range of challenging topics covered includes:

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• family values
• racism in mono and multi-cultural settings
• democracy and citizenship
• the environment and sustainability
• consumerism, finances and media advertising
• gender, health and identity
• grief and loss.

For all student and practising primary teachers, Tackling Controversial Issues in the Primary School provides much needed support as you help your learners face complicated ideas, find their voice and get involved in the issues that they feel make a difference.

Chapter 1
Introducing controversial issues

Concepts and challenges

After a meeting, I was engaged in conversation with a woman who suddenly turned her interest to my own background: ‘Do you have a family?’ she asked. ‘Yes, I do,’ I replied, ‘my mum and dad live locally and I have a brother.’ ‘No,’ she replied, ‘I meant do you have a family of your own?’

Teachers face a range of issues, often raised directly by their learners, on a regular basis. They need to be prepared for unexpected questions and crises (whether personal to the children, national or international). This introduction sets the scene for what will follow and provides signposts to different sections within the book. It raises a range of issues and considers what constitutes a controversial issue. Our understanding of issues is based on the way in which we perceive the world. At times those around us see things from different perspectives and in very different ways, as shown in the vignette at the start of this chapter. We can find our opinions, values, attitudes and beliefs challenged; sometimes we are misunderstood and at times we misunderstand others.

The source of controversial issues

The issues addressed in this book are controversial for a range of reasons. Many relate to Cole’s notion of ‘isms’ and phobias (Cole 2008b) that include classism, racism/xeno-racism and xenophobia, sexism, disablism, homophobia and Islamophobia. These issues each appear at various points throughout this book. Teachers and other child-care professionals need to be aware of isms and phobias in order to create classrooms founded on equity, the value of pupil voice and the principles of democracy.

Why are issues controversial?

Issues concerning the market (Chapter 9) and democracy (Chapter 5) will be controversial for some because they involve discussing political issues with children. An increasing focus on enterprise education means that children are being introduced to economic systems from a young age. This needs to be questioned and evaluated. In British society the suggestion that capitalism’s free-market economics and the dominance of global multi-national companies (Chapter 4) should be balanced with a consideration of alternatives, such as socialism, is controversial. Sometimes controversy comes from suggesting something different to the norm.

Issues of ‘race’ (Chapter 2), identity and gender (Chapter 6) may be controversial because they challenge the status quo. To suggest, as antiracist educators do, that society perpetuates racism unless it makes a direct stance against it, stimulates discussion. Similarly, whilst most people would agree that we should value children’s families and home backgrounds (Chapter 3), they may shrink from their children knowing about same-sex parents. Introducing an understanding about sexual orientation to primary school children can prove controversial, yet they have an existing awareness of such relationships from the media and other sources. Controversy can come from ideas that make us feel uncomfortable.

Bereavement (Chapter 7) is not controversial in itself: it is a fact of life. However, it is a difficult issue to face and without a willingness to engage with it we will never be able to face life’s challenges with our learners. It is astounding that it is an issue largely neglected within the formal curriculum, even when learning about life processes. Whilst some will feel that this is an area to be addressed by parents and carers, as educators we will work with bereaved children and their families at various points in our careers. Similarly, the Holocaust (Chapter 8) is not controversial: it is fact. But when some primary schools choose to include it in their curriculum or to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, important questions must be raised about the appropriateness and effectiveness of this. Some issues are controversial for age-appropriate reasons.

Thus, controversy can arise from the unexpected, from a lack of understanding, from personal discomfort or from questioning the age-appropriateness of subject content. Having said this, an issue is not controversial solely because it causes debate. It is, thus, important to explore what constitutes a ‘controversial’ issue.

Defining controversial issues

A controversial issue is one that presents challenge and stimulates debate; it involves no universally held or fixed point of view. Almost any issue can feel controversial when people hold different beliefs, views or values. Some issues are controversial because of their subject matter, for example whether experimentation should take place on human embryos. Others present a challenge because of their inclusion in the school setting, for example whether sex education is appropriate in a primary school classroom. In each instance, there will be differing and, sometimes, contradictory views arising from the issue or its presentation. The Crick Report (QCA, 1998) suggests that children need to address controversial issues in order for them to develop the skills necessary to deal with them knowledgeably, sensibly, tolerantly and morally.

By definition, a controversial issue must be addressed through means of reasoned and informed reflection, debate and evaluation. One may believe that the earth is flat, but this view does not stand up to reasoned scrutiny. Thus, it is not controversial – no matter how hard one may argue for it. The Education Act (1996) aims to ensure that children are not presented with just one side of a controversial issue by teachers; there should be a balanced presentation including views from different sides. However, in some matters, for example those pertaining to human rights, it may not be appropriate to present an unbiased view. It is important to identify and explain the reasons for any bias so that children understand how an issue is being approached and the reasons for this. Developing reasoned arguments, based on evidence, is a key part of exploring controversial issues and provides an essential life skill for children.

Why address controversial issues?

It is important to address controversial issues with children for several reasons. First, they will be aware of many issues and situations (from their families, the news media and other sources) that are of concern and that may challenge their thinking. To deny the opportunity to raise these in school is to remove its role in education (the ability to think, reflect, analyse and evaluate) and replace it with that of training (knowing the mechanics of grammar, mathematical processes and facts). Whilst information is important, being able to use and apply it is more so. Second, without the opportunity for discussion, children will have significant gaps in their learning in terms of knowledge, skills, concepts and understanding, which are needed to equip them for life: children need to be presented with opportunities for critical thinking (Oxfam, 2006b). Third, children need opportunities to develop and express their opinions, whilst listening to and understanding those of others: a classroom can provide an ideal setting to do this in a supportive and safe environment (Citizenship Foundation, undated). It is important to remember that controversial issues can be sensitive and require carefully thought-through strategies for their consideration. Generic strategies are introduced below, and further specific strategies are explored in each subsequent chapter.

The significance of this book is that it explores controversial issues in primary education, both those that are challenging because of their content and others that prove sensitive because of their inclusion in a school environment, seeking to support teachers in considering their own approaches. It considers how teachers can tackle issues that are relevant to the interests and experiences of their learners, the strategies that can be effective in classroom settings, and how children can learn to make informed choices as to how they can exercise their own rights and their responsibilities (Oxfam 2006b). This approach is rooted in examples from classroom practice to enable teachers to consider pedagogical issues through the experience of others.

I hope that readers will disagree with some of the ideas and arguments in this book: to do otherwise would be to fail to engage with the sometimes sensitive, controversial and subjective content. In places, my own views and biases will come through; I think that this is inevitable when exploring subject matter about which I care deeply. However, I hope that I am appropriately open and honest about any biases and that these will make the text all the more engaging.

Identifying controversial issues

It is now over 20 years since the first major texts on teaching controversial issues were published (for example, Stradling et al., 1984; Wellington, 1986; and Carrington and Troyna, 1988), and over ten years since the Crick Report (QCA, 1998) set out the case for citizenship education. In addition, 2009 marked a significant anniversary of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights – civil, cultural, economic, political and social (UN, 1989). This is a timely point at which to review teachers’ views on issues-based education.

An examination of the issues included in texts on controversial issues twenty years ago shows that concerns have changed. Wellington (1986) included a chapter on nuclear armaments, an issue that still hits the headlines today (e.g. concerning whether to renew Trident), but concerns about the threat of nuclear war seem to have diminished since the end of the Cold War. You may wish to consider what issues you anticipate being controversial in primary schools and those that you feel apprehensive about facing. For some, existing experience will already have informed these views. The views of student teachers outlined below will provide prompts for comparison. They were gathered through a survey of students in eight universities in England during 2008–9 (including pre- and post-1992, Russell Group, Guild HE and 1994 group universities) that varied in size of provision and setting. An online questionnaire was used to discover:

• the personal importance placed on key social issues in primary education;

• the issues that had been covered in students’ training programmes;

• the issues that students expected to encounter in their first teaching post; and

• the issues they anticipated finding most difficult to address in school, with reasons.

Graded scales were used to elicit responses to the first three elements, and the fourth provided an opportunity for open responses accompanied by unlimited free-flow text input. Responses were gained from around 12 per cent of the target group. Students were approached by e-mail from a member of faculty in their institution or by an announcement on a virtual learning environment (and in some cases both). All contributions were anonymous and no individual institution can be identified in the findings.

The views of student teachers

The choice of subjects for the book’s content has been informed by this exploratory study, which was undertaken during the first semester of 2008 with students in primary initial teacher education. These students, in their final year of undergraduate study on courses leading to QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) and on PGCE programmes, completed an online survey. The students were asked to rate issues according to the personal importance they placed on each in primary education. They were also asked whether they thought they would encounter these issues early in their careers. Some 55.6 per cent of respondents were on undergraduate courses and the others were undertaking a PGCE course.

Table 1.1 shows the answers in ranked order according to the highest importance that students placed on each issue. It is interesting to note that, with one exception, the student teachers felt that each issue had some degree of importance. Nearly all were felt to have at least a medium level of importance by over four-fifths of respondents. Such a judgement is clearly subjective, but it does suggest that, for these students at least, issues-based education has a place within the primary school.

Students identified areas of concern in response to the open question: Which three issues do you anticipate finding most difficult to address in school? Their responses have been grouped, with the most common categories being:

See Table

It is interesting to note the individual and sometimes private nature of the first four categories. Relationships, bereavement, the family and religion can eac...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Introducing controversial issues
• Chapter 2 Living together
• Chapter 3 Family values
• Chapter 4 Developing worldviews
• Chapter 5 Democracy, politics and cooperation
• Chapter 6 Gender, identity and acceptance
• Chapter 7 Grief and loss
• Chapter 8 Remembrance and remembering
• Chapter 9 Learning and the market
• Chapter 10 Conclusion – towards inclusive practice
• Postscript
• References
• Index