Tackling Difficult Issues With Courageous Conversations
When students are given the agency to plan lessons around discussing topics important to them, they build a strong sense of voice and empowerment.
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Go to My Saved Content.At in Portland, Maine, a school in the , 鈥淰oice and Agency鈥� is one of the core tenets upon which they base their instructional approach. One example of their commitment: When students feel there is something important that needs to be discussed鈥攁 current event, a schoolwide issue, or a social dilemma鈥攖here is a process in place to bring the topic to the forefront. Typically, students pitch their idea to the student council, and if it鈥檚 approved, they work with their teachers to develop talking points, guidelines, and curriculum around the subject matter. The result is a set of courageous conversations on difficult issues, 60-minute discussions led by trained student facilitators that are held across small group advisory sessions all on the same day鈥攕o everyone in the school participates.
When 11th-grade students Kendall and Mirabel noticed offensive language based on sex and gender coming up in everyday conversations, they were moved to develop a courageous conversation about casual misogyny. In the wake of their powerful discussion, they shared some interventions and strategies that teens could use to call out microaggressions or interrupt when they hear a friend say something sexist, disrespectful, or derogatory.
Casco Bay High cares deeply about amplifying student voice and truly engages teenagers in running their school community. The discussions are always closed out with some sort of outcome or action plan. According to former principal Derek Pierce, 鈥淚t鈥檚 about voice and empowerment, so that students know that their perspective matters and that they can do work that will shift the world in ways that need to be shifted.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;
EL Education offers a list of sentence starters for courageous conversations on difficult issues that can be useful in developing lesson plans like these. You can also find more resources in the 麻豆传媒入口 article by EL Education teachers Anne Vilen and Katie Dulaney, 鈥�Hot-Button 麻豆传媒入口, Civil Conversations.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;
The term was originated 30+ years ago by author Glenn E. Singleton to describe frank conversations around race. Singleton has since developed the idea into a full protocol and framework for deeper dialogue鈥攈is organization trains leaders in education, community organizing, government, and industry.