1: Defining Issues-Centered Education

Issues-centered education focuses on problematic questions that need to be addressed and answered, at least provisionally. Problematic questions are those on which intelligent, well-informed people may disagree. Such disagreement, in many cases, leads to controversy and discussion marked by expression of opposing views. The questions may address problems of the past, present or future. They may involve disagreement over facts, definitions, values and beliefs. Answers may be rooted in a person’s cultural background, in formal knowledge accumulated in disciplines, and in “common sense” experience. Examples of such problematic questions on the topic of governmental powers include:

To say that questions are problematic means there are no conclusive, finally “right” answers. But some answers, however tentative or provisional and subject to change in the future, are clearly better or more valid than others. The purpose of issues-centered education is not just to raise the questions and expose students to them, but to teach students to offer defensible and intellectually well-grounded answers to these questions. Judgements about the validity of some answers may depend upon the context in which the judgement is offered. But issues-centered education should not be construed as people expressing biases and values that cannot be reconciled. The point of issues-centered education is just the opposite: to develop well-reasoned responses based on disciplined inquiry, on thoughtful, in-depth study, and to move beyond relativistic notions of truth.