In a Winter 2022 Independent School magazine article, “Discourse Inflection: How to Teach Citizenship,” Robert von Glahn described classroom techniques designed to cultivate “civic behaviors like active listening, inclusivity, and productive disagreement” in his AP U.S. Government and Politics course. Among other observations, von Glahn described his practice of offering feedback to students about their participation directly following class discussions. “I highlighted and celebrated civility, inclusion, and respect, but I also identified specific instances of negative behaviors including interrupting, listening to respond rather than to understand, and grandstanding.”This approach helped students reflect on, and in some cases reshape, how they spoke with classmates. According to von Glahn, “some were shaken when they realized the habits they had formed.” Any teacher who has taken the time to observe a recorded discussion of their own classroom may find von Glahn’s remark unsurprising. At least in my experience, class discussions can often play out differently in reality than I had imagined them during the planning phase. Personalities come into play, digressions happen, moments of messiness are unavoidable. All these issues existed when I started teaching 20 years ago. Complicating things considerably, though, are the ways of interacting that students see modeled in today’s divisive political climate.
Cable news schedules include hours of “debates” between people shouting over each other; perhaps more significantly for our students, meme culture eliminates arguments and rebuttals entirely, substituting barrages of viral images for any semblance of debate. These modes of discourse create plenty of content for us to scroll through on our phones; they also can create major problems if our democracy is supposed to function through open discourse.
As educators, we can do a great deal to remedy this problem by developing skills that are critical for effective future citizens. von Glahn’s article described his approach to doing this with upper school students. As a middle school language arts teacher at The Wellington School (OH), I’ve created lessons and exercises to lay a foundation for developing discourse skills even earlier. Intentional planning along these lines is especially crucial as the next general election cycle is on the horizon.
The Starting Point
Beginning in the spring of 2016, something about the tenor of the primaries alarmed me. Specifically, I recall hearing remarks about the subject of immigration that I knew would be received differently by students in my demographically and politically diverse school. With an entire election season approaching, I decided to proactively create a curriculum that would introduce and reinforce the skills necessary for students to clearly articulate their positions and actively listen to those of their fellow students.That summer, working with social studies teacher Victoria Pang, we began this work by identifying the following teaching objectives that related to improving discourse:
- The student will be able to use rhetorical strategies to convey an argument.
- The student will be able to fairly articulate an opponent’s argument and evaluate the merits of shifting his or her own position.
Critical to our approach was an awareness that it was not necessary for students to engage with what von Glahn’s students described as “heavy” content to build these skills. In fact, we thought, staging debates regarding low-stakes issues could lower the emotional temperature of conversations. This, in turn, could create opportunities for students to practice debate tactics, perspective-taking, and mental flexibility without the pressure of discussing highly charged issues. By debriefing and discussing as students practiced, we could improve skills related to discourse in preparation for more serious discussions later.
Example in Action
In fall 2016, Ms. Pang and I worked with our middle school head, Erin Noviski, to carve out a day of lessons and activities built around our objectives. With our entire seventh and eighth grade classes gathered in our middle school commons, we began by showing a slightly abridged scene from the TV show Parks and Recreation, in which Councilman Jeremy Jamm breaks all the rules of civil discourse; this was followed by a real-life unproductive shouting match from C-SPAN’s coverage of a House subcommittee. We defined the terms “empathy,” “respect,” and “civility,” noting that civility can involve staying in conversation with someone you disagree with. Students then used a Lego listening game to help them understand the importance of closely following another person’s words in order to get an accurate understanding.Having laid our foundations, we then introduced an activity that we called the “Pokémon Go Caucus.” The subject of the debate for this activity was a made-up law regarding the Pokémon Go app. The statute, which we dubbed “Issue 7,” made it a crime to use Pokémon Go at street intersections in Upper Arlington, where our school is located. The wording of this law emphasized the hazards created by distracted pedestrians, citing news stories about injuries and accidents attributed to addicted players searching for virtual creatures in the real world. Some students supported the proposed law on the grounds that it would reduce accidents and improve public safety; others opposed the law as an infringement of personal liberty.
In the same way that participants at a political caucus show support by physically clustering together, we asked students to “vote with their feet” to share their opinion for or against Issue 7. From that point, with students standing in “for” or “against” caucuses, Ms. Pang and I added more ingredients of an active democratic process. We invited students to invent slogans, create posters, and nominate their most capable speakers to present on their behalf.
Because students had no preconceived notions about the rights or wrongs of this made-up law, they participated in these activities without anxiety or inhibition. They created posters that read “Pokémon No!” and prepared short advertisements against the proposed law, which were shared like skits in front of the entire middle school. When it came time for “fishbowl conversations” between champions for either side of the issue, students followed the debate closely and gave immediate feedback about how well or poorly the students did in terms of active listening, grandstanding, and so on.
Once debates concluded, Ms. Pang and I asked students to carefully consider what they had heard. Perhaps one of the debaters had framed the issue in a way they had not considered or raised a question they had not thought of. In short, students might have been persuaded by the other side of the argument. If so, we asked that they move from one caucus group to the other. A pause followed this invitation and then, to the astonishment of their peers, some students shifted sides.
After this exercise, we invited students to reflect on various parts of the experience. Had they felt any sense of excitement? Any desire for their side to beat the other side? Any sense of loyalty to their side that impacted their decision to stick with or leave their caucus? Bringing the discussion back to the big picture, we acknowledged how intense political discourse can be. Every emotion students experienced during the Pokémon Go Caucus has a corresponding emotion in political life, except those emotions tend to be deeply rooted and highly charged.
Building a capacity to stay in conversation even as the temperature of those conversations increases is work that can be continued in upper school settings, leading up to the activities described in von Glahn’s article.
Where to Go From Here?
Staging low-stakes debates to train students’ speaking and listening skills is highly adaptable and can be frequently replicated to reinforce and introduce new objectives. Any “Would You Rather” question could be fodder for a classroom debate or caucus activity (e.g. “Would you rather have scales or horns for the rest of your life?”). Questions such as “PlayStation, Xbox, or other?” have the advantage of opening additional possibilities. Before any of these questions is put forward, the teacher can introduce a specific skill or objective. For example, one could introduce rhetorical strategies like repetition or show how a speaker could introduce and then debunk counterarguments to strengthen their own case. Those rhetorical strategies can then be used in debating ridiculous questions.In addition to rhetorical strategies and active listening objectives, teachers may also want to focus on intentionally strengthening student’s self-regulation. We have used the thermostat as a metaphor for regulation and encouraged students to practice deep breathing or other techniques to cool down so that they are able to stay in conversations that may be difficult or uncomfortable.
In terms of political discourse, we want students to be able to articulate their positions clearly based on sound evidence and cogent arguments. We want them to be able to acknowledge counterarguments, and we want them to be able to evaluate the merits of an opponent’s argument fairly, without mischaracterization.
By focusing on such objectives from an early age and then building on them with increasingly heavy content, we can help develop citizens who may do considerably better with discourse than we’ve done in the past decade or so. Admittedly, this is a low bar, but it is also a high aspiration, reversing a trend toward more vitriol and less understanding.
Read More
The next election cycle is just around the corner. NAIS has several resources on teaching citizenship, encouraging civil discourse, and how to handle politics on campus. Check them out:- “Discourse Inflection: How to Teach Citizenship,” by Robert von Glahn, Independent School magazine, Winter 2022
- "Fostering Civil Discourse in a Time of Polarity,” Lisa Kay Solomon, Independent Ideas blog, September 22, 2020
- NAIS Toolkit: Election Season, Politics on Campus, and Civil Discourse