Balancing Commitment and Openness in Teaching: Giving Conservatives Their Best Shot

Abstract

My method of coping with these problems facing critical pedagogy entails an effort on the teacher’s part to balance a rationally established, politically committed position (some would say “a bias”) with open-ended challenges to it. This method aspires—haltingly, to be sure—to William’s Perry’s highest stage of development in moral reasoning, that of committed relativism. I apply this method mainly within the context of an advanced composition course in argumentative rhetoric and writing from sources, first formulated in my 1992 “Teaching the Political Conflicts: A Rhetorical Schema,” then developed in textbook form in Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy.