Practical Wisdom Reasoning through Deliberative Pedagogy

Deliberative pedagogy holds promise for improving democratic society by cultivating practical wisdom in students as a means to tackle the problems of democracy, such as polarization. This study embraced an opportunity to consider civic education in the 21st century through deliberative pedagogy by considering practical wisdom in a synchronous, virtual deliberation among university stakeholders and local political candidates concerning our role in 21st-century politics. This civic site enabled an analysis of practical wisdom across three student roles: facilitators enrolled in a deliberation course; students from the wider university; and student alumni of the university’s deliberation center, who had been exposed to deliberation in curricular and cocurricular practice. Using a constructive rhetorical analysis to understand practical wisdom within deliberative pedagogy discourse, we contend that students in these three different roles demonstrated three key aspects of practical wisdom through their discursive responses to rhetorical exigences that arose during deliberative engagement. This analysis offers insights beyond outcomes and informs deeper thinking about curricula and better pedagogical practices. Additionally, such studies, focused on the discourse itself, contribute to understandings concerning the connection between rhetoric and deliberative pedagogy.

Case Study: Partnering Intercultural Communication Students with Campus Co-Cultural Student Groups to Develop Intercultural Competence, Allyship, and Curiosity

The question I analyze in this case study is how might one use civic engagement to foster campus/community relationships in this polarized era? I describe a teaching challenge in intercultural communication. Students have consistently reported that they arrive to this university from rural, majority-White communities where they have not experienced opportunities to communicate with culturally diverse groups. To address this challenge, I developed a semester-long assignment that provides a structured partnership between students in my Intercultural Communication course and campus co-cultural student groups. To assess this assignment’s benefit to the pedagogy surrounding polarization across cultural differences, I qualitatively analyzed themes in students’ reflection papers (N = 128 papers) from the last five sections of the course (2016–2020). Students addressed how these partnerships helped them develop (1) intercultural competence, (2) acceptance or appreciation through allyship, and (3) curiosity about other cultures. I conclude with implications, including how colleagues might use this assignment in other rural, land-grant public university settings.

Making Monsters

Instructors have critically sought ways to embody the theories and ideals espoused in radical texts and work to better force changes in the type of students we produce. What is presented here is an honest reflective dialogue, based on a reflexive critique of 17 years as a professor and the students I have encountered. But more importantly, this is also based on an equal set of years studying the aftereffects of White supremacy, the “candy wrapper” left on the ground at a campsite that informs someone was present, insinuates what may have been done, and eludes a sense of disregard while foreclosing any understanding of what it will go on to do next. Those candy wrappers are the “mild” subjects of the legacy of lynching, colonialism, and state-sanctioned violence. So, in the context of being a faculty member engaged with students, I pose a question to you, for us, from me: What if instead of “transgressing” White supremacy, we are in fact maintaining it? Many of us in higher education have come to an understanding that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is insufficient for college teaching and student learning to positively move forward through the 21st century. If we are to understand White supremacy not as a societal add-on that has corrupted the world around us but instead as the actual world around us, how do we properly contextualize this in a course or class? How do we foster experiences that deepen an understanding of a systemic reality? This essay challenges reductionist understandings of White supremacy as a matter of privilege that are reflected in DEI, culturally responsive teaching, dismantling, antiracist, invisible-knapsack-based approaches. Could it be that through this reduction we are instead producing “monsters”?

Composing an “Agon” and “Lettering a Public”: Democracy Between Binaries?

In response to ongoing expansion of neoliberal ideology in democratic education, this essay details a classroom experiment that attempts to “redo,” or “recraft” democracy. Recrafting democracy, in this context, takes shape in active efforts to compose an agonistic public sphere through a specific kind of “lettering a public.” As described, intentionally inefficient student efforts to “care-fully” compose, revise, and mail democratic letters allowed a more reciprocal and felt form of democratic deliberation to unfold. The essay describes the “Dear Demos” course assignment and articulates how the experiment in doing democracy might work to contest neoliberal notions of efficient, technocratic models of self-governance.

Walking the Walk: Democratizing Change in Teacher Education

In this essay, as a group of teacher educators, we discuss our experience of “walking the walk” of teacher education transformation at a time of urgent change. We reflect upon our process of integrating three key priorities in our preservice teacher education courses: education for sustainability; trauma-informed practice; and Indigenizing curriculum. Specifically, we reflect on how these processes were adapted according to the needs of individual courses and units, while at the same time making space for our strengths and our “unlearnings” as academics, and for the ethical considerations that troubled us. In this essay, we explore walking the walk of change and integrating social, environmental, and cultural justice principles in our work together toward equipping and enabling new teachers to be themselves agents of change.

Witnessing History: Reflections on Teaching in Turbulent Times

Prior political turmoil in the United States constituted a precarious foundation for living and teaching through a pandemic. In this essay, I contend that pandemic separation and ideological distortion have exacerbated polarization and distrust. I also consider the pedagogical implications of rising extremist discourses and conspiratorial thinking for both students and faculty. Educators must pay attention to the rising threat of extremism and consider that our students may be susceptible to radical antidemocratic ideologies as well. To conclude, I provide examples from some of my classes in the communication discipline to illustrate my approach to teaching the complicated intersections of rhetoric and reality in today’s polarized political climate.

Free Listening

Given the widespread ideological polarization of the current times, cultivating ways to empathize across difference has never been more important. In this essay, we outline Free Listening (FL), a pedagogical practice that helps people grow their capacity to empathetically engage others across difference by engaging in structured sessions of active empathetic listening. Our prior work demonstrates that the structured practice of FL has both affective and practical implications for how students engage with others; students leave the practice with a greater sense of awareness, appreciation for other cultures, and ability to listen across cultural and ideological boundaries. We believe FL has great promise within the teaching-and-learning process in relation to civic and community engagement, service learning, and relational praxis. In this essay, we outline the practice of FL and review literature that helps elucidate what this practice is and does. Some key themes are discussed that reveal the valuable contributions of this practice as they have emerged from our students’ and our own experience with/in FL. Finally, we trace the pedagogical implications of FL as they connect to theories of dialogue and dialogic praxis. Overall, we argue that FL should be a regular practice for pedagogues across the social sciences in order to cultivate in students the relational and empathetic skills that are needed to advance the project of depolarization—a project in which other-centeredness should be a defining feature.

Using a Headshot Assignment to Incorporate Critical Theory Into Photojournalism Classrooms

This case study uses a diversity and critical thinking exercise in a photojournalism class to show how journalism educators can incorporate race and gender conversations about ethics and judgment into traditionally skills-oriented courses. It is crucial that journalism students learn how to apply their skills properly in an era of social unrest, inequality, and dwindling media trust. Democratic citizenship and journalism are intertwined, but often the bigger ethical conversations are left out of skills-oriented courses. This can lead to a disconnect between the skills themselves and the responsibility of practicing the skills, especially when it comes to matters of power and representation. The field of photojournalism remains predominately White and male, which makes it all the more crucial for students to interrogate their own biases to ensure ethical coverage of their communities. The assignment asks students to make 36 portraits of strangers, and the subsequent classroom exercise has them confront their inherent biases by looking at the demographics of the people they photographed compared to the general population. Data for this case study consist of observations of the classroom conversations and a reflexive journalism exercise the students completed afterward. Findings indicate this exercise is a successful way to introduce racial and gender considerations as part of photojournalistic ethics and judgment. Students initially neglected to think about representation and diversity in their selection of people to photograph but afterward said they could effectively incorporate reflexivity into their work in an effort to provide more representative imagery and confront their own biases.