Emily Robertson

Teaching and Ethics. An Epilogue.

Threadbare the little outer-coat he had, For he was still to get a benefice And thoughts of worldly office were not his. For he would rather have beside his bed Twenty books arrayed in black or red . . . He gave to study all his care and heed, Nor ever spoke a word beyond his need, And that was said in form, respectfully, And brief and quick and charged with meaning high. Harmonious with virtue was his speech, And gladly would he learn and gladly teach. [3, p. 13]

The Case for Contention: Teaching Controversial Issues in American Schools

room décor, he also notes the irony of teenagers’ increasing reliance on the ephemera of consumer culture — including pinups and posters, advertisements, pop and beer cans — used to supposedly express their own personal identity. Get Out of My Room! could benefit from a deeper examination of the relationship between the teen bedroom and notions of sexual development and sexual experience. As Marie Louise Adams has argued, domesticity was a key facet of Cold War containment, increasing adults’ desire to see adolescents develop what were described as normal heterosexual relationships.3 Educational films from the period — few of which are examined in Reid’s book — may have shed light on experts’ views on the bedroom’s role in the sexual maturation process. Also unaddressed is the question of sexual violence in teen bedrooms. Given the often-close relationship between victim and perpetrator in cases of rape and sexual abuse, it is worth asking how often these crimes were committed in teen bedrooms, and whether experts and families were concerned about them. Police and court records might be one way to explore the role of teen bedrooms in these tragic, but important, events. Nevertheless, Get Out of My Room! is a valuable addition to the history of childhood and youth because it clearly demonstrates the central role that autonomous teen bedrooms have played in American culture, child-rearing and family relations, development psychology, and residential architecture. Reid successfully argues that the teen bedroom has been both an intensely personal and intimate space, as well as the frontline for debates about children’s development, autonomy, and rights in American society.

Public Reason and the Education of Democratic Citizens: The Role of Higher Education

Recent public discourse in the United States has often been polarized, contentious, and filled with half-truths and misconceptions, if not outright lies. Like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, some citizens seem able to believe “six impossible things before breakfast.” Many colleges and universities have committed themselves to helping form socially responsible citizens as a central part of their mission, a task long embraced by public education. What are the knowledge, skills, and commitments — the citizen virtues — on which a healthy liberal democracy depends? And what role, if any, can higher education play in developing them?

The controversy over controversial issues

Avoiding the discussion of controversial topics in U.S. classrooms deprives students of an important part of their learning. Jonathan Zimmerman and Emily Robertson, authors of The Case for Contention: Teaching Controversial Issues in American Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2017) say Americans are terrible at having informed, reasonable debates in part because schools do not prepare students for such exchanges. Although our policies encourage or even require instruction about controversy, we do a poor job of preparing and supporting teachers to ensure that they can provide such instruction. Teachers need both the prestige to lead the discussion of controversial issues and the protection to do so consistently. In addition, Americans need more education about exactly what constitutes a controversy, which is itself a controversial issue.