ABSTRACT
One of the most controversial aspects of teaching controversial issues revolves around differing opinions of what is controversial in the first place. This plays out in the differing opinions regarding how a question is taught-is there one answer, or are there multiple and competing answers? It is this issue to which I now turn. The reason this is so controversial in schools is because there is often ferocious debate in the world outside of school about whether something is legitimately controversial, especially when an issue is tipping. Tipping refers to a number of processes by which topics (which have managed to get into the curriculum in the first place) shift back and forth between their status as open questions (for which we want students to engage in deliberating multiple and competing answers) and closed questions (for which we want students to build and believe a particular answer).
