Even as our nation seeks unity, let there be dissent in schools

Dissent and disagreement are important to the political process, and where can students learn those skills if not in school?

Since his first day in office, President Joe Biden has pledged to reduce the level of partisan rancor that has overtaken American politics. “We must end this uncivil war,” he declared in his inaugural address, insisting that “unity is the path forward.” Apparently, most Americans welcome the effort to tamp down the rancor and elevate the pursuit of consensus and compromise among political rivals. According to recent polling data, 88% of citizens believe our leaders should put aside the vitriolic tone of recent years and try to find common ground (Goeas & Lake, 2021).

While I agree that our politics have become toxic, I find myself troubled by the recent emphasis on unity. After all, effective citizenship requires us to engage our competing perspectives, embracing new possibilities that may arise from an open clash of ideas. If we hope to salvage our damaged democracy, then the solution isn’t to smooth things over but to become more determined to identify our points of disagreement, challenge each other, and freely express our competing views. Unlike the unprincipled and uncivil negativity that has been common in recent years, good dissent challenges the status quo, criticizes accepted views, and puts forward principled alternatives (Stitzlein, 2014).

When political conflicts arise, we must ask each other, “What should we do?” The American experiment has always depended on our willingness to begin with this open-ended question, one that invites dialogue about how best to solve our shared problems (Levine, 2016). In recent years, though, too many of us have shied away from this kind of civic inquiry and exchange, choosing to silo ourselves away with like-minded peers instead of seeking out, listening to, and challenging each other. As a result, we’ve diminished our collective capacity to make intelligent decisions about, for instance, how to ensure fair elections, get through the pandemic, respond to police brutality, and teach our children about racism.

Despite the essential role that dissent plays in a healthy democracy, we rarely teach it in our schools. This is a mistake, and it is one that is being exacerbated by recent legislation that further curtails the discussion of politically contentious views in schools. As educators, we must lead the way in protecting the free expression of dissenting views, and we must make it a priority to model civil dialogue, showing our students that when they challenge each other, even sharply, they tend to arrive at better solutions to their shared problems.

Threats to civic learning

In the final months of the Donald Trump administration, we saw a series of policies and proclamations that were billed as efforts to protect free expression but, in reality, seemed more likely to chill it. These included an executive order (deceptively titled “preventing online censorship”) designed to make it easier to sue online platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, that choose to warn the public about misleading content, including many of Trump’s own posts and tweets; an order (titled “combating race and sex stereotyping”) that sought to block federal agencies from providing staff trainings related to race, gender, and equity, and an order on “protecting free speech on college campuses” that added nothing to existing legal protections for free speech, but rather served to intimidate university administrators by threatening to withhold federal research funding if they allowed demonstrations against conservative speakers who come to campus. Further, and just two days before leaving office, Trump released the report of his 1776 Commission, which claimed to provide objective guidance on how best to teach the nation’s history in schools, but which, in fact, made a number of unsubstantiated attacks on scholars who have offered dissenting views about U.S. history. Rather than engaging with the substance of these arguments, the report simply dismissed them as hostile to “America’s principles.”

Although the Biden administration has rescinded these orders, similar steps have been taken in a number of states over the last several months, with Republican-controlled legislatures passing bills meant to curtail the teaching of “divisive” topics or those that make students uncomfortable in public schools. For example, multiple states have restricted the use of curricular materials created by the 1619 Project (a New York Times initiative highlighting the experiences of African Americans throughout U.S. history) and/or banned instruction that draws upon critical race theory (a scholarly effort to study the ways in which racism has influenced American society).

Nor have attempts to silence dissenting views been limited to education. Largely in response to recent demonstrations against police brutality, the vast majority of which have been peaceful, more than 90 bills have been proposed, across 35 states, that would limit such protests and/or impose harsh punishments on those who participate in them. Notably, some of these bills seem designed to preclude citizens from participating in public protests at all — if there’s even a slight chance that a few participants might engage in violence or destruction of property, then the gathering would be defined as a “riot.”

Additionally, the U.S. Supreme Court has curtailed students’ free speech rights in recent years. In the well-known 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines ruling, the Court asserted that public school students were free to voice dissent against the Vietnam War, as long as they did not substantially interfere with the learning environment. And in the following decade, it issued similar rulings in a trio of cases, defining the public school as a place where students should learn to express and engage competing world views. More recently, however, the Court has taken a more restrictive stance, such as in the 2007 Morse v. Frederick case, where it ruled that a student who displayed a “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” sign across the street from his school could be suspended since he contradicted the school’s antidrug message.

This June, in perhaps the most significant student speech case since Tinker, however, the Court reasserted the value of free speech in schools, which Justice Stephen Breyer described as “the nurseries of democracy” and as playing an important role in the “marketplace of ideas.” In response to a school cheerleader’s profanity-filled social media post, which she wrote while off-campus, the Court declared that the resulting disciplinary action taken by the school was unjustified because the post did not significantly disrupt the learning environment (Kim, 2021). Interestingly, the Biden administration had previously sided with the school, arguing that while we should be wary “of any rule that would permit an overbroad opportunity for the discipline of such speech,” it is correct to limit speech that targets classmates or harms school cohesion (Walsh, 2021), especially given the extent to which hate speech and bullying have proliferated on social media. Although the Court ultimately upheld the “crude” speech of the cheerleader in this case, they did echo the Biden administration in their assertion that speech that is harassing, bullying, threatening, or otherwise disruptive to learning can be punished.

In light of this turbulent history of proclamations, policies, and court decisions, I would argue that rather than focusing on the parameters for when to restrict speech or public protest, our emphasis should be on teaching students how to use speech and political dissent in civil and politically effective ways, even if they may not always be polite.

How do we foreground dissent in schools?

Our public schools have long been hesitant to allow students to discuss political controversies (Zimmerman & Robertson, 2017), and teachers have worried about backlash from parents and administrators if they encourage such discussions (Hess & McAvoy, 2014). But these recent state laws and Court decisions — along with the seemingly growing belief that we can simply smooth over our political differences — have created a whole new set of obstacles for civic learning, challenging us to redouble our efforts to prepare young people to participate in contentious decisions about how best to govern our country. Now more than ever, we must teach our students the history of political deliberation and dissent, give them opportunities to practice these skills, help them discern which ideas should be taken seriously and which should not, and show them that respectful disagreement is not necessarily “nice.”

Highlighting the role of dissent in a democracy

To help students understand the importance of dissent in American political life, teachers can showcase historical and recent examples in which it has triggered meaningful change, from civil rights era protests (which led to expanded voting protections) to more recent movements, such as #MeToo (which led to greater awareness of sexual harassment and the development of new workplace trainings meant to curb and prevent abuse).

Further, teachers should help students understand that effective civic inquiry — grounded in the question, “What should we do?” — is experimental in nature, welcoming multiple and even conflicting perspectives on the causes of our public problems and the potential solutions we might test out (Stitzlein, 2021).

But teachers should also help students see that dissent is not always limited to polite, nonconfrontational conversations. Rather, history has shown that effective dissent often requires emotional arguments, disruption, and even radical protest. In recent years, for example, students and school communities have employed such tools through die-ins in support of gun control and staged empty desks to draw attention to the lost education of students during the pandemic. Careful study of past movements, such as those of the civil rights era, will show that protesters do not always know in advance which forms of protest will be most effective, so it’s important to allow citizens to protest in a variety of ways, only limiting those that pose harm or significant impositions on other people.

Teaching students to dissent and to respond to dissent

Students should be taught not only to express dissent in effective ways but also to listen carefully and respond appropriately to others’ expressions of dissent. Many Americans feel disregarded, and this feeling leads to resentment, even rage, which further distorts civic engagement — as we saw, for example, when white nationalists, outraged by plans to remove a Confederate statue, marched through Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting, “You will not replace us.” What might have been a productive opportunity to express frustration and, ideally, deliberate what to do about Civil War monuments, instead devolved into acts of intimidation and violence.

Millions of students across the country witnessed this and similar events, such as the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and may be unsure what to make of them, including whether participants were raising points worthy of further discussion or whether their arguments should be dismissed out of hand. Without sufficient guidance from teachers, some may be left wondering how to put forward their own views or share their experiences of exclusion and anger, and some may decide to imitate the problematic and violent behavior they witnessed because they aren’t aware of the alternatives. Learning how to voice and respond to dissent can help to validate the experiences of frustrated citizens, thereby heading off feelings of rage that come from being unheard in society.

Helping students discern when to celebrate, dismiss, and engage dissenting voices

The Charlottesville and Capitol cases illustrate just how important it is to determine whether a specific expression of dissent is credible. In the midst of a post-truth era plagued by conspiracy theories, of course we shouldn’t take all views at face value or weigh them equally. Nor should we provide an unchecked soapbox for speakers in our classrooms to make threats, defame people, or derail classmates’ learning opportunities. But when students air controversial ideas, we shouldn’t be too quick to shut them down. For one thing, if educators ignore the extremist voices now proliferating in society, then young people will be left without the skills needed to analyze or refute them. For another, some ideas that initially strike people as “extreme” may, on deeper analysis, turn out to have merit.

Thus, we should resist leaders who aim to curtail how we teach about injustice or divisive topics, such as recent calls to restrict the teaching of critical race theory. Instead, we should preserve spaces where students learn how to sift through differing and even competing perspectives to help them understand the complicated nature of historical struggles and enable students to arrive at well-rounded opinions about them (Farag, 2021).

To prepare for citizenship, young people must know how to analyze the substance of ideas and arguments that challenge the status quo, looking carefully at the facts and evidence speakers present and determining whether those ideas are worth serious consideration. For example, every student should have opportunities to learn critical media literacy skills, with which to test the credibility and veracity of the various views they encounter on the internet and elsewhere. Notably, the Stanford History Education Group has created a range of high-quality tools that can help students analyze online sources, recognize sanitized accounts of history, and think critically about the messages they encounter. It also offers various resources for teachers, from lesson plans that address competing beliefs about U.S. history to guidelines for analyzing the veracity of online claims about past events (Wineburg, 2021).

It’s not enough, though, to teach students how to discern whether information is factual or even just to give them more facts. We must also help them understand how rhetoric and propaganda function, including the use of psychological and emotional appeals and other persuasive techniques designed to bolster our existing opinions and discredit how others view the world (Heller, 2021). Further, these lessons should happen alongside efforts to improve students’ persuasive writing, so that they learn how to make moving and informed pleas for their desired changes in the world, while also being attuned to the strengths and weaknesses of competing arguments.

At the high school level, especially, educators should consider assignments and activities, such as shared values exercises (Allen, 2019), that encourage students to think about how their core values and assumptions shape how they interpret and respond to others’ ideas and arguments. For example, a teacher might begin by identifying a political controversy (e.g., what to do about the large numbers of people applying for asylum at the southern border of the U.S.), and then ask students to think about their own emotional response to this scenario (e.g., perhaps a student feels angry at the asylum seekers, suspecting them of lying about the dangers they face in their home countries) and the underlying values that lead them to have that response (e.g., the belief that it would be a grave injustice to permit economic migrants to take advantage of this country’s generous asylum laws). Next, the teacher helps the students identify shared values that may relate to this case, such as the belief that all people, including noncitizens, deserve a fair hearing, or that the U.S. should strive to be a compassionate nation, providing a haven for those who’ve suffered abuse in other part of the world. Students then reflect on how those values resonate with them personally and how they might lead to differing arguments about what should be done. (For example, should we demand that all of these asylum claims be handled on the Mexican side of the border? Deny asylum to anybody who can’t immediately furnish incontrovertible evidence that their lives would be in danger if they were sent home?

Allocate more resources to the asylum system to make sure every case receives a thorough investigation?) The point here is to show students that no matter how strongly they feel about an issue, their peers may have reasonable grounds to feel very differently, based on values that many Americans share. On some issues, and in some contexts, we may choose to hold firm on what we believe. But as citizens in a democracy, we must try at least to understand each other’s principles and look for common ground on which to negotiate.

Modeling empathy, intellectual humility, and tolerance

Civil dissent requires a willingness to question one’s own views, to depart from the views commonly held in one’s community, and to form alliances with other people. If we rush to reach consensus, in the name of unity, we risk not only shutting down helpful dissenters but also dehumanizing them by defining them as extremists or enemies of the state. Doing this only creates barriers between citizens, making it more difficult to work together to solve problems.

Teachers should not only model civic relationship building, but also facilitate lessons in which students learn how to listen generously to people different from themselves, resisting the temptation to disagree before hearing them out fully or, worse, to retaliate with insults or zingers. That is, they should provide spaces for testimonies to be voiced, but also opportunities for those testimonies to be heard. This means learning how to be moved by others and to change our understanding in light of the ideas they’ve shared (Warnick, Yacek, & Robinson, 2018). Such listening and engagement can lead to introspection, pushing students to reconsider their own views and, sometimes, to develop tolerance toward those of others. Listening and engagement exercises can help students to see their shared humanity and take ownership of their shared fate, while also coming to appreciate their real and enduring differences.

Yet, as the philosopher Anthony Laden (2019) has argued, civility should not be equated with being polite or agreeable. The goal is to be responsive and respectful, taking care to hear each other out and allow for further deliberation and inquiry. That said, respectful listening can trigger outrage, and carefully reasoned rejoinders can be expressed in an angry tone, which may make some people uncomfortable. When students are passionate in their dissent, teachers might be tempted to shut them down or to ask the class to take a break. However, citizenship often requires us to engage with people who are both emotional and reasonable, and students should learn to listen, make sense of each other’s views, and preserve relationships even when conversations become heated.

If we want to guide students to engage in more deliberate discussion and dissent, we must be willing to facilitate these conversations in our classrooms, teaching students to proceed with humility and reciprocity, even if the topic makes them boil over with emotion. As Sigal Ben-Porath and Gideon Dishon (2018) recommend, we can uphold civility in classrooms and online spaces by asking diverse students to make an explicit commitment to pursuing a just and ongoing dialogue about shared problems and to pushing through challenging moments when they might be tempted to cut the conversation short. Further, they advise, teachers should make it clear that participants in classroom and online discussions must hold each other accountable for the ideas and materials they share — for example, if students spread fake news or unfounded conspiracy theories, then teachers and classmates should call them out for doing so, and they should accept responsibility for any harm they have caused.

Finally, educators also need to recognize how power and privilege operate to put students at different starting positions for civic participation. For example, some students, based on their personality or their social positioning in dominant roles, may be more confident and forceful in asserting their views. Those students may need to learn to shoulder more of the load when it comes to listening and humility in the classroom, especially if their speech exposes their lack of understanding of others, devalues others, or contributes to the oppression of others.

Moving forward with dissent

It has always been challenging to teach young people to appreciate and practice civil dissent, but the hurdles only seem to be growing higher today, as some state legislators pass laws restricting approaches to teaching U.S. history, others propose restricting the right to protest in public places, and the U.S. Supreme Court struggles to clearly distinguish which speech is protected in public schools. These challenges are exacerbated also by a climate of growing political partisanship and distrust of fellow citizens in general and teachers in particular. But the stakes for our democracy are high, and our responsibility to future generations requires courageous action.

As Joshua Starr (2021) asserts in the April 2021 Kappan, teachers and school leaders must encourage productive conflict. Rather than shying away from teaching about controversial topics, we should make it a priority to model civic discourse in our classrooms, teaching our students to listen and respond carefully to those who hold differing views. In the February issue of Kappan, Wayne Journell (2021) adds that while it can be hard to distinguish between open controversies (which lend themselves to meaningful classroom debates) and settled issues (which do not), teachers can look to existing guidelines to help them identify topics, assignments, and discussion prompts that invite students to build reasoned and evidence-based arguments, rather than resorting to insults or shouting matches (Hess & McAvoy, 2014).

To analyze complex matters of public importance, separate facts from disinformation, and arrive at viable solutions to the shared problems we face, we must bring many different voices to the table, ensuring that we air all legitimate concerns and tap into every available source of insight. By helping young people learn about and practice this sort of healthy civic dialogue, we can build the kind of social trust that will allow them, as adults, to engage in thoughtful, fact-based deliberations, grounded in mutual respect for free speech, dissent, and the value of coming together, whatever our differences, to ask ourselves what should we do?

Note: Funding for this project was provided by the Institute for Humane Studies.

References

Allen, D. (2019, September 30). An inspiring conversation about democracy. Vox Conversations [podcast].

Ben-Porath, S. & Dishon, G. (2018). Don’t @ me: Rethinking digital civility online and in school. Learning, Media and Technology, 43 (4), 434-450.

Farag, A. (2021). The fear of multiple truths: On teaching about racism in a predominantly white school. Phi Delta Kappan, 102 (5), 18-23.

Goeas, E. & Lake, C. (2021, January). Civility Poll. Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service.

Heller, R. (2021). Understanding propaganda: A conversation with Renee Hobbs. Phi Delta Kappan, 102 (5), 33-37.

Hess, D.E. & McAvoy, P. (2014). The political classroom: Evidence and ethics in democratic education. Routledge.

Journell, W. (2021). Taking a reasoned stance against misinformation. Phi Delta Kappan, 102 (5), 12-17.

Kim, R. (2021). Regulating student speech in the Snapchat era. Phi Delta Kappan, 102 (6), 62-63.

Laden, A. (2019). Two concepts of civility. Routledge.

Levine, P. (2016). The questions each citizen must ask. Educational Leadership, 73 (6), 31-34.

Starr, J. (2021). When conflict erupts, what’s a school system leader to do? Phi Delta Kappan, 102 (7), 60-61.

Stitzlein, S. (2014). Teaching for dissent: Citizenship education and political activism. Routledge.

Stitzlein, S. (2021). Defining and implementing civic reasoning and discourse. In Educating for civic reasoning and discourse (pp. 11-39). National Academy of Education.

Walsh, M. (2021, March 4). Biden administration, education groups back school district in student online speech case. Education Week.

Warnick, B., Yacek, D. & Robinson, S. (2018). Learning to be moved: The modes of democratic responsiveness. Philosophical Inquiry in Education, 25(1), 31-46.

Wineburg, S. (2021). The silence of the ellipses: Why history can’t be about telling our children lies. Phi Delta Kappan, 102 (5), 8-11.

Zimmerman, J. & Robertson, E. (2017). The case for contention: Teaching controversial issues in American schools. University of Chicago Press.

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This article appeared in the September 2021 issue of Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 103, No. 1, pp. 43-48.