Working With Conservative Students

This episode of the podcast features a conversation with four teachers who work in a range of contexts – elementary, middle school, high school and adult education. Although they work with different student populations, they deal with many of the same issues. One in particular arises again and again -when teaching from a critical or liberatory perspective, what is the best approach when you have students in the classroom who have conservative or reactionary world views and opinions? These students often actively resist considering new information, ideas or perspectives. If we remain committed to a pedagogy that does not simply dictate to students what they need to believe, that means we need to explore multiple ways of getting critical dialogue started. Each of the teachers in this discussion share their own experiences and insights, and a group we push ourselves to clarify our thinking.