I love football. I’ve been known to annoy family and friends in July as the countdown to the season’s opening begins. And so, as the conversation over whether or not athletes should be able to kneel or absent themselves from the national anthem escalated over last weekend and spilled into basketball, baseball, and even golf, I wondered how I’d facilitate a conversation about the events in my classroom. The answer: a Structured Controversy.
Not wanting to lose any teachable moments, especially when learners cared about current ethical events, I was excited to discover Structured Controversies as a teaching tool at a critical thinking workshop some twenty years ago. The notion is that a class is divided into two opposing camps, considers the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing value priorities, and then engages in conversation to seek a policy resolution that harmonizes the values without discrediting either position, and thus builds trust accross ideological divides.
This tool can be used in a face-to-face or online classroom and for any academic discipline when the value priorities are clear. In this situation, you have some professional athletes (and their fans) who want to kneel or absent themselves from the national anthem to draw attention to racial inequities. On the other side, you have some professional team owners (and their fans) who want to demand that athletes stand for the anthem as they believe that an athletic event should not be politicized. The overarching perennial question: when an employee has a high-profile position, what limits (if any) can/should an employer place on their First Amendment right to political speech?
Using teaching strategies such as Structured Controversies is important if we are actually going to teach and measure learners’ abilities to think critically. Derik Bok wrote a telling essay on improving the quality of higher education where he stated that “although 99 percent of professors consider critical thinking an ‘essential’ or ‘very important’ goal of a college education, fewer than 20 percent of the exam questions actually tested for this skill.”
Testing for critical thinking can include writing assignments that follow exercises like Structured Controversies where learners actually get practice in formulating policy arguments, explaining them to colleagues, and then drafting resolutions that honor both positions. And, as EthicsGame has shown, web-mediated learning experiences and exams can also effectively teach and measure the skills of critical thinking.
Key is being intentional, doing our own work of thinking carefully about naming the differing value priorities, and then structuring a learning experience that does not require that one side be silenced. Our best teaching happens when students can explore and articulate deeply-held values—even if those values might not be popular. The skill of respectfully harmonizing competing ethical values is invaluable in a world where polarization is more prevalent than ever, exacerbated by social media where we can just participate in our own echo chambers.
Feel free to contact EthicsGame for more information about how our learning tools can help you teach—and measure—a learner’s ability to critically evaluate ethical values in tension and resolve them.