ABSTRACT
This final chapter draws together issues from previous chapters and considers teachers’ responses. Using original research undertaken with those involved in delivering primary education at different stages in their careers, it raises further issues and suggests strategies to underpin the exploration of difficult issues in general. This widens the application of the book to other issues and provides a framework to support teachers in their work. As a conclusion to the book, it explores what makes an issue controversial, and considers how such issues change over time. It also addresses how to work with parents and carers who raise concerns when issues are introduced or discussed in classrooms. It seeks to give teachers, and those in the later stages of their training, the confidence to tackle issues and to help their children to explore questions about a challenging and ever-changing world.
This book has explored a range of values in the context of specific controversial issues in primary education. Here, I draw together some key elements from across the chapters. First, children are citizens. They are not the citizens of the future; they are living in society
in the here and now. Whilst The National Curriculum (DfEE and QCA, 1999) has a focus on preparing children for adult life, schools also need to consider how they are supported in the present. The notion of the polis (city) outlined in Chapter 5 provides a basis for this: as members of the community children are inevitably affected by and concerned about political issues. They have rights, enshrined in national and international law, and need to be enabled to take on increasing responsibility for their own ideas, actions, attitudes and values. These are elements that are fundamental to developing a sense of citizenship, including global citizenship and cosmopolitanism (outlined in Chapter 4), through which they can contribute to the sustainability of the planet and care for its inhabitants. Valuing both similarity and difference is a central element to such values. Appreciating
the different identities of others, whether these relate to gender, ethnicity and ‘race’, family background, sexuality, social class or any other difference (whether real or perceived) is a
fundamental value to be upheld and exhibited by all teachers and to be encouraged in our learners. The Code of Conduct and Practice introduced by the General Teaching Council (England) emphasises such an approach throughout its elements (GTC, 2007). Cole’s (2008b) notion of ‘isms’ and phobias (outlined in the introductory chapter) underpins a great deal of thinking in this regard. It stresses the need to make a stand against discrimination and inequality, actively seeking to make a difference. The idea that ‘there is no —ism here’ provides a breeding ground for complacency and for inequality to be tolerated. Whatever the circumstances outside the school, classrooms should be places where the highest standards of respect, value and inclusion are both exhibited and promoted. Teachers need to be aware of children’s needs, concerns and experience outside the
classroom if they are ever to meet their needs within it. Whether this is through appreciating their home backgrounds (Chapter 3) and difficult situations they may be experiencing, or through helping them to deal with change and transition (Chapter 7), there is a need to nurture the whole child. Teachers are part of a very caring profession that is committed to the needs of individual learners. However, at times the education system mitigates against this through the pressures of market forces, including tests, performance criteria and league tables. As professionals, we can find ourselves hard pressed to deliver a curriculum that seems to leave little time for personal interaction and social care. Two aspects are particularly important when considering controversial issues with our
learners. First, there is the need to allow open discussion and to enable learners to evolve their own views and values without imposing our own (discussed in Chapter 3). Second, there is the need for issues to be explored in context rather than in isolation. Without a sense of the reality surrounding values children will not be supported in applying them to their own outlooks and behaviours. This has been considered particularly in Chapter 8, where the Holocaust provides a stark example of how an issue could be ‘parachuted’ into the midst of a busy curriculum without a proper sense of embedding learning and making links to children’s broader understanding.
