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on an issue, but striving to ensure that these viewpoints are presented as effectively as possible. The gold standard for this principle, asserts Thomas Kelly, is if the most articulate spokesperson for a particular perspective had been sitting in the back of the classroom, she would have felt her best case was made fairly and accurately.27 The process of imaginative engagement plays an essential preliminary role here, and (as discussed in chapter 4) many avenues exist to help students appreciate unfamiliar perspectives and their arguments. Again the skeptic may wonder whether such deliberative discussion is beyond the reach of many students, particularly those who lack advanced verbal and reasoning skills. Will such students be willing and able to step into dialogue and practice the skills of deliberation? Secondary school teachers Alan Singer and Michael Pezone argue they will, citing their own extensive experience in the classroom: “We find that democratic dialogues are much more successful in classrooms with students who are targeted for failure by our society than they are in collegebound classrooms where students compete for grades and the approval of teachers. Generally resistant students readily respond to the opportunity for individual freedom of expression and collective decision making offered by the dialogue process.”28 In my own experience, this is doubly true when the issues being discussed are the deep, vital ones that characterize Ethical Dialogue. The assertion here bears emphasis: students of widely differing levels of academic achievement deserve exposure to and practice with Ethical Dialogue, and while obviously instruction will need to be differentiated, this is no different than most curricula experienced by a heterogeneous school population. A PORTRAIT OF ETHICAL DIALOGUE I opened this book by describing a classroom moment early in my career when I sidestepped a discussion of religion, science, and the public square. Here and in the chapter to follow I recount episodes of more successful forays into Ethical Dialogue. My intent in doing so is not to suggest that my pedagogical efforts always generate the engagement and insight of these particular dialogues—as any teacher knows, sometimes discussions fall painfully flat—but to offer a sense of the potential that exists for developing the skills of thoughtful citizenship through ethical exploration. 97 Grappling in the Classroom I When my English class discussed Brave New World ’s image of conveyor belt reproduction and warnings about cloning in the early 1990s, stem cell research was a term unfamiliar to most citizens. Since then, of course, it has become a hotly contested public issue, not only as a policy question itself but as representative of broader tensions involving the purposes and power of genetic engineering. The topic has arisen repeatedly in my classes and serves as a useful illustration of how the notion of “live and let live” is often insufficient. This particular episode I share here also provided me the opportunity to emphasize with students the notion of reasonable disagreement. When stem cell research came up during a sophomore humanities class one semester, I offered a layman’s explanation of how advocates see the potential of scientific and medical applications for stem cell research. I then noted that many people, particularly from religious perspectives, are opposed to such experimentation because they see the destruction of the embryo as akin to abortion. Let me take you back to that conversation. I could tell from her expression that Sharon was getting frustrated with the implications of this resistance. “So what are we supposed to do about this?” she asks. “Should religious people get their way, even if it means delaying cures for diseases?” “That’s a good question,” I respond, looking out over the class. “What do you folks think?” Julia doesn’t hesitate. “Hey, if there are more of us religious people than the rest of you, we should get to choose. That’s what a democracy is all about.” I often find that one way to examine ethical assertions my students make is to extend them to the level of broader principle. I seize on this opportunity to raise the idea of tyranny of the majority. “Really? So if the majority of voters decided we should kill off the elderly on their eightieth birthdays, would that be the right thing to do?” After a few jokers reply affirmatively for the shock value, everyone in the class admits that this would be immoral and—in the words of one student—“we all have basic rights that no one can take away.” Sarina, who...

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