Carrie Welsh 00:00
This is like, why are discussions so awkward? Why? Indeed, Daisy? That’s Daisy Jagoditsh, who just graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and she has some thoughts on the answer.
Daisy Jagoditsh 00:12
Why are discussions so awkward? It’s because, like, phones.
Carrie Welsh 00:16
But the bigger issue for Daisy? is that professors and TAs
Daisy Jagoditsh 00:21
…don’t know how to like, make people trust each other and connect and like want to speak.
Carrie Welsh 00:26
Our focus today is on whether teachers should let students know their political beliefs in the classroom. But I want to start here with Daisy’s question about awkward class discussions, because to me, the feeling of an awkward classroom is so often how political discussions feel to me in real life, and because Daisy’s answer, again,
Daisy Jagoditsh 00:47
trust each other and connect and like want to speak, potentially points to a solution for both problems.
Carrie Welsh 00:59
Welcome to Ethics and Education. I’m Carrie Welsh. On today’s episode, should higher ed teachers disclose their political views in the classroom? How does it impact students’ learning if they do, and what do students and teachers owe each other, regardless of whether the teacher discloses their views?
Carrie Welsh 01:23
We’ll come back to Daisy in a bit. But first, let’s turn to professor Harry Brighouse to define what we mean when we say teacher disclosure.
Harry Brighouse 01:33
Letting students know what your own conclusion or view is about some morally or politically valenced question that is the target of your investigations in the classroom.
Carrie Welsh 01:48
Harry teaches moral and political philosophy at UW–Madison, and you’ve likely heard from him before if you’ve listened to this podcast. He’s also the director of the Center for Ethics and Education. We’re using this term disclosure to cast a broad umbrella over all kinds of ways that teachers might let students know their views. But what we kept hearing about from almost everyone we spoke to was how this often looks in the classroom.
Daisy Jagoditsh 02:13
I think a lot of professors disclosing political views is not actually like, hello, everyone. I believe X thing. It’s like jokes.
Max Patterson 02:22
It was a joke. They were trying to be funny. Get some laughs.
Harry Brighouse 02:25
A cruel quip about a current president.
Daisy Jagoditsh 02:27
It’s like jokes about the state of the world, or about like a certain thing, or like a certain political figure,
Carrie Welsh 02:34
or even if it’s not a joke, it might be something else small,
Max Patterson 02:37
something as little as facial expressions, right? A student will say something, a facial expression will give it away.
Carrie Welsh 02:43
Harry calls these micro expressions and jokes leaking. If you’re a professor, this can be tricky territory. Sometimes a joke is just what a class needs to break the tension and get the discussion going. But,
Daisy Jagoditsh 02:56
but also it’s like a really cool way to, like, totally exclude a bunch of students if you want to do that as well, which you know, I hope professors don’t want to do that.
Carrie Welsh 03:06
For example, take Max Patterson, whose voice you heard a minute ago. Max is a former philosophy student at UW who identifies with conservative political views.
Max Patterson 03:16
professor I loved in a class that I absolutely adored. We were talking about Mussolini, and they made some like, quit relating Mussolini to Trump. And I was just sitting there thinking, wow, like, I love the professor. I’m fine, but I guarantee you there’s some students here that just are now tuning out.
Carrie Welsh 03:38
Now you might be saying, but these are college students, not elementary schoolers. They’re adults, and it’s okay to expect adults to be intellectually resilient, to be able to take a joke. But I want to underline this phrase Max used: tuning out. It’s not that the students who might have been offended by Max’s professor couldn’t manage their reactions. None of them stopped showing up to class entirely. After all, they’re adults. The problem is that learning takes work. It takes engagement. And a joke that alienates those students makes it less likely that they will keep leaning in to do that work and to engage. For Professor Harry Brighouse, this is exactly why he has trained himself to not disclose his views on politics or on issues that come up in his classroom, Harry says he has two main fears that have led him to not disclose. The first fear is what Max described, that students with an opposing view will disengage. His second fear–
Harry Brighouse 04:37
is that students who agree with me will get intellectually lazy. They think, well, you know, of course, I’m right. He agrees with me, and thereby not do the kind of difficult, careful, thoughtful engagement that I need them to do.
Carrie Welsh 04:53
And that is exactly what happened with a different former philosophy student named Avra Reddy. During her senior year at UW–Madison, Avra took a course about the poetry of protest. And as you might expect, a lot of that poetry is written from a progressive viewpoint.
AVRA REDDY 05:11
And I remember maybe like the second week in, I felt like I wasn’t really learning anything in the class. I felt like I knew the assignment was to take the poetry and then remember, we were told to, like, do a discussion post or write an essay. All I had to do was spew something that was along the lines of being liberal, which wasn’t hard because I am liberal and that I would get a fair grade.
Carrie Welsh 05:40
Avra found this frustrating. So one day a few weeks into the semester, she raised her hand, she asked if the professor thought there was any protest poetry written from a conservative viewpoint.
AVRA REDDY 05:51
And I think this professor was just like one really shocked that I was asking this question, but then also clearly just did not have an answer, like clearly had not thought about this, or hadn’t researched any conservative poetry, and it just like wasn’t even on her mind to present it to the class.
Carrie Welsh 06:10
After that, Avra dropped the question, but she felt like it was a missed opportunity.
AVRA REDDY 06:15
I think it would have been really cool to have a conversation about if protest works in our current state, where does protest come from? What type of different protest literature exists, right? I just feel like the class had so much more potential, but by immediately sharing and being very open about her political views, it kind of gets a lot smaller.
Carrie Welsh 06:38
So if engagement is essential for learning, and if both liberal students and conservative students disengage when their teachers disclose their political beliefs, then disclosure is bad, right? Well, not always. During my interview with Harry, he brought up a counter example, a professor who used to teach Marxist history at UW–Madison named Harvey Goldberg. This guy was kind of a legend. Hundreds of people would pack into his lecture halls to hear him teach, many of them not even enrolled in the course. And in those lectures, Professor Goldberg was very transparent about his own political views.
Harry Brighouse 07:15
There was a richness and excitement and intellectual thrill that students were getting from those lectures that you couldn’t have gotten if you weren’t disclosing, they were thrilling. And so maybe it’s better that he discloses, because there’s something there that he can’t do without, without embodying the views that he has.
Carrie Welsh 07:40
So the question we should be asking about teachers disclosing their political views isn’t about whether it’s good or bad, it’s whether it harms or supports learning in that particular class. As I mentioned earlier, Harry Brighouse has decided that the right pedagogical choice for his classroom is for him not to share or joke about or otherwise leak his views. Professor Tony Laden, on the other hand, tends to be slightly more open. Tony teaches philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and he’s the Associate Director of the Center for Ethics and education. And sometimes Tony does disclose his position on issues that come up in the classroom. Like Harry. Tony sees this as a pedagogical choice.
Tony Laden 08:25
I think mainly the reason I don’t worry so much about disclosure is a matter of attentional budget.
Carrie Welsh 08:31
Tony says there are a lot of things he needs to hold at the front of his attention while he’s teaching, things like, are these students listening to each other and dealing with each other’s ideas. Is the discussion lopsided? Is one student dominating? Is there another way of seeing this issue and to Tony, if he were also worrying about if something he said might reveal his political views, that worry would crowd out those other important questions.
Tony Laden 08:58
The other thing is, I want to be authentic to the students, and so I want to sort of be there with them. And if I’m constantly saying things I don’t believe, or not saying things I do believe, I feel like that is going to get in the way with that kind of authenticity.
Carrie Welsh 09:13
So Tony does other things in his teaching. For instance, if he catches himself building an argument on a particular issue, he’ll then jump to the opposing viewpoint or find another way of looking at it before he moves on with the discussion. Tony also gives assignments and poses discussion questions that ask students to take multiple angles on a topic and to think things through collaboratively. This helps his students avoid falling into the trap of a two sided debate. It also requires them to try on arguments that might not align with their default position. When I picture all of this happening in Tony’s classroom, it feels almost athletic like what Tony’s up to here is number one, putting his own ideas through their paces so they don’t get too rigid or too out of shape. Yeah. And number two, taking his views down off the winners podium, so to speak, by inviting all kinds of ideas to move around in the arena. Tony sets the tone for this kind of empathetic rigor. At the beginning of the semester, during the first week of class, he gives his students a handout with a list of views and political affiliations that any student might hold, and this handout helps remind his class that the issues they’ll discuss aren’t just abstract concepts. For example, two issues Tony teaches on are punishment and incarceration.
Tony Laden 10:32
I’ve got students who have been incarcerated. I have students who have family members who have been incarcerated, and I also students who are parole officers and whose family members work in law enforcement, and so I just say, look, in the class with you, there are people who have all these different positions, and so just be mindful of that. And whether or not they feel comfortable in this class depends on what the rest of us do, and they all have a right to feel comfortable in the class.
Carrie Welsh 10:58
So Harry deliberately withholds his viewpoints, and Tony is more open with his but their argument to their fellow teachers is basically the same here. It’s less important whether you disclose your stance on issues, and more important how you do it. And they’re both guided by basically the same rule.
Tony Laden 11:18
I think the thing you most want to avoid is coming off as dismissive about or contemptuous of a position that one of your students might hold, or somebody they might encounter outside of class might hold.
Carrie Welsh 11:32
It struck me here that Tony uses the word contemptuous. Contempt is one of the four most damaging possible behaviors in any relationship. Research by the Gottman Institute tells us that when someone feels they are the target of contempt, it can trigger a stress response called flooding, and when you’re experiencing this reaction in your body, it’s also really hard to learn to me, this means that the way we’re thinking about teacher disclosure here, it doesn’t only apply to the philosophy departments where Tony and Harry teach, or only to discussion based classes where controversial issues might come up. It also applies to classes we might think of as more cut and dry, like math, science engineering, because we’re not actually talking about how a professor votes or where they stand on a particular issue. We’re talking about the environment they create in their classroom and how they regard ideas, whether they respond to their students’ ideas with an attitude of charitable thinking and trust.
Max Patterson 12:34
There’s more work on the side of the professor to making it a trustworthy environment, and if you do that, then those disclosures, I think, have less of a chance of being problematic with some professors. The trust was so strong and so deep that anything was on the table and I felt like there was going to be zero judgment, and that anything I said would would be taken charitably
Carrie Welsh 12:58
as Max points out, if you’re building trust, you’re also building a buffer for your own inevitable human mistakes. And to return to where we started this episode, Daisy notes that trust is also one of the ingredients that makes good discussion much more likely to happen.
Daisy Jagoditsh 13:14
I do think there’s an extent to which building trust is like a science, and there are, like, totally easy things that you can do in order to make your students trust each other and trust you. But I think there’s also an extent to which it’s an art, because, like, in order to do it well, it like, requires vulnerability, and you can’t be like, fake vulnerable.
Carrie Welsh 13:36
At this moment in my interview with Daisy, the first thought that crossed my mind was, is this the case for icebreakers?
Daisy Jagoditsh 13:42
Oh, it’s a massive case for icebreakers. I think, I think they’re awesome. I think, like, icebreakers doing little team building activities day one, what are you doing? Going through the syllabus, don’t do that. Like, grab some hula hoops and play some games. Like, that’s how you’re gonna make people trust each other.
Carrie Welsh 14:01
Some additional context on Daisy, I work for
Daisy Jagoditsh 14:04
adventure learning programs. That’s like, my job. My job is to make people do this. So, like, that’s like, my bias, but I think it really works. I don’t know you can start with icebreaker stuff, but like, if you progress to, like, let’s problem solve together, you’re basically doing philosophy secretly. It’s secretly you’re practicing all the same skills,
Carrie Welsh 14:25
Even if your overt aim isn’t to teach philosophical skills, trust is still critical. Avra has noticed that, especially in her science classes, trust can make the difference between feeling like she can ask a clarifying question and pretending she knows. And this is the same Avra who boldly raised her hand to ask about conservative protest poetry.
AVRA REDDY 14:47
But still, I feel like it’s still really hard, like I still get really anxious to be like, I don’t understand this in front of other people.
Carrie Welsh 14:54
Part of what helps Avra to go beyond that anxiety is a desire to show younger classmates what production. Of discussion could look like. She remembers pushing back in one of Harry’s classes during her senior year at UW.
AVRA REDDY 15:06
I distinctly remember one point in that discussion, Harry and I kind of got into it with each other. Like, not in a bad way, but we were just kind of like our voices were raising, and we were like, well, heck, you know, in front of all these freshmen, and I just like, kind of remember all the freshmen were like, What is she doing? Like, this is crazy, but yeah, I mean, I think I knew that, like, my role in that classroom was to try to drive the conversation forwards and really think about, like the opposing view to things
Carrie Welsh 15:36
Avra had taken a bunch of classes with Harry at this point, so she felt like she had some trust and rapport with him already, but she says part of what she modeled for the freshmen in that moment was how to disagree without derailing the conversation, how to let your professor and your classmates know they can trust you to not be that guy. Daisy has also tried to encourage trust among her fellow students. For Daisy, sometimes that looked like being the one to start a conversation in the first few minutes before class, instead of scrolling her phone. Sometimes that just looked like owning the energy she shows up to class with and not trying to be anything else
Daisy Jagoditsh 16:13
you try to, like, I don’t know, embrace the awkwardness in a way that’s kind of charming. And I think that can open people up. But I think, like, that’s just, like, kind of my social style, like, I’ve heard that from other people is like, Dude, you’re like, awkward, but in like, a weird, endearing sort of way. So like, that’s just me, but I don’t think there’s a math equation you can do to figure out how to do that yourself, you know.
Carrie Welsh 16:38
But of course, teachers should and do bear most of the responsibility for making their classroom a trustworthy environment, a place where ideas get taken seriously, and that requires doing more than the bare minimum.
Tony Laden 16:51
So I guess I used to think that it was enough for me to say and repeat often there’s no party line in the class. Your grades aren’t going to be determined by the content of your views, but about how well you express them and the quality of your arguments. And I think that’s not enough.
Carrie Welsh 17:11
So if you’re a teacher looking to improve how you shape the space for trust and discussion in your classroom, you might start by asking yourself a few questions, questions like, What am I already doing? Am I disclosing or even leaking my views on political issues? What do I want to be doing in what ways will that support my students learning? And who are my students? What views might they hold? Are they mostly freshmen, upperclassmen? And once you know these things, and you have an idea of the kind of environment you want to create in your classroom, Avra’s advice is to talk about it.
AVRA REDDY 17:48
It’s really hard to know what you owe each other in a classroom if you, like, haven’t even been taught that, right? Because, like, my initial response was, oh, well, we like, owe each other the ability to listen and the ability to like sit and think about what somebody else is saying and then like respond to what they’re saying instead of just saying what we want to say. But I think that’s a very learned skill.
Carrie Welsh 18:11
Something Tony does at the start of every semester in partnership with his students, is to try to build that skill. He asks his students,
Tony Laden 18:19
what makes a good conversation, right? Why are we having conversations in this class? What’s the point of those conversations? What makes those go well? What makes them not go well?
Carrie Welsh 18:29
If you’re a teacher or a student listening to this episode and you want to have a conversation like this, but you feel like you could use some structure and support for it, we have a teaching guide for you. You can find it on our Center for Ethics and Education website under teaching resources. We made this resource because this stuff isn’t easy.
Daisy Jagoditsh 18:48
It is so much harder to like think about issues which maybe you have some emotional investment in. You want to do everything you can as a professor to make people question their own beliefs despite that emotional investment.
Harry Brighouse 19:06
I want the students, whatever their view coming in, to fully engage with the reasons against the view that they hold, and to fully engage with reasons for the view that they hold, which I’ll be honest, sometimes they hold a view and they don’t have sometimes they hold the view, and I would say they’ve got the right view, but their reasons for that view are pretty bad. And so even if you got the right view, that’s not good enough.
Tony Laden 19:30
I think another reason why I don’t worry so much about disclosure is because I I want to teach them to think well about these issues. Have the same tools at their disposal that I have. But then I think, what happens when you think, well, about a lot of these issues, is they get harder. It’s not that they get easier, and so you’re less likely to be really sure of your position, and you’re less likely to be dismissive of views that aren’t like yours. And so what I want them. Learn is to be somewhat humble in their conclusions, because they are thinking better about them, and they see that the issues are much harder than they appear at first glance, or that they hear about on TV.
Carrie Welsh 20:13
The better you are at thinking, the harder it is to have a settled position on a nuanced issue. So maybe another indicator of whether you’re supporting good class discussions and taking students’ ideas seriously is whether you’ve unmade up your own mind lately. And that’s a healthy thing to keep an eye on, even if you’re not a teacher.
Harry Brighouse 20:34
It’s terrible for a democracy that people can’t listen to and think through the reasons that the people they disagree with have. It’s terrible for those people themselves. It’s not just that they fail to be good at doing philosophy, it’s that they fail to have all sorts of intellectual experiences, and they fail to have friendships, and they fail to have there’s just lots that is missing. But yeah, it’s also really bad for the society.
Carrie Welsh 20:55
This idea came up a number of times in the interviews we did for this episode that a lot of us want to be better at having productive discussions, because we see that that would be healthier for society. The good news is that, especially if you’re a student or teacher, you’ve got a place to practice.
Carrie Welsh 21:12
Thank you for listening to ethics in education. This episode was produced by Jennifer McCord and me, Carrie Welsh, and it was written by Jennifer McCord. Thank you to Daisy Jagoditsh, Max Patterson, Ava Reddy, and Teresa Nelson for their contributions to our thinking and to this discussion. Thanks also to Harry Brighouse and Tony Laden. Lastly, we talked a lot about trust on today’s show. Our last episode was about exactly that– building trust in higher education, which Tony explores in his book, Networks of Trust.
Tony Laden 21:55
being transformed by something exterior to you only happens when you are vulnerable just being so transformed.
Carrie Welsh 22:05
You can find that on our website or on any podcast app, and if you’re leaving today’s episode about teacher disclosure feeling like you want to further untangle how your brain interacts with opposing views, it’s a great next lesson. Thanks again for joining us for this one. For the Center for Ethics and Education, I’m Carrie Welsh.