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Policy EJA - Teaching About Controversial Issues

Policy EJA- Teaching About Controversial Issues (PDF)

Issue Date: December 16, 2009

 

Following are the guidelines for teaching about issues that may be controversial:

  1. The approach to controversial topics is impartial and objective.
  2. The treatment of the issue in question must be within the range of knowledge, maturity, and competence of the students.
  3. Study materials and other learning aids must be available. from which a reasonable amount of data pertaining to all aspects of the issue may be obtained.
  4. The issue should be current, significant, real, and important to the students and the teacher.
  5. In discussing controversial issues, the teacher will keep in mind that the classroom is a forum and not a committee for producing resolutions or dogmatic pronouncements.  The class should feel no responsibility for reaching an agreement.
  6. Although it is the teacher’s responsibility to bring out the facts concerning a controversial question, he or she has the right to express his or her opinions, providing the students understand that it is his/her own opinion and it is not to be accepted by them as the authoritative answer.
  7. The Principal bears a major responsibility for the administration and supervision of the curriculum, selection of materials and methods of instruction.  
  8. The Principal must be alert and aware of what is being taught in the school.