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Ethics Across the Disciplines Lecture Series: Paula McAvoy
February 25, 2019 @ 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
Paula McAvoy, “The ethics of steering classroom discussions”
Monday February 25, 5:00-6:30 pm
Peabody Hall 104
When teachers open up discussions of moral and political controversy in the classroom, it is common to believe that teachers should not use their position as the facilitator to steer the discussion toward a particular conclusion. If the question is genuinely “open,” advocates of this view reason, then students should be free to decide the issue for themselves. In this talk, Paula McAvoy will reconsider the practice of steering discussions to ask: When (if ever) are teachers justified in steering discussions of moral and political controversy?
Paula McAvoy is Assistant Professor of Social Studies Education in the Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences, NC State College of Education. She is co-author of The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education (Routledge, 2015), for which she and co-author Diana Hess were awarded the 2016 American Educational Research Association Outstanding Book Award and the 2017 Grawemeyer Award for Education.