How can students and teachers gain nuanced understanding of today’s most pressing issues when these topics are often portrayed in oversimplified and polarized ways? Furthermore, how can educators support deep inquiry into challenging topics when working in spaces where concepts like Critical Race Theory and LGBTQ+ rights are under intense scrutiny? This workshop will support teachers and students in navigating the challenges of a polarized nation so that we may foster a more nuanced understanding of ourselves, one another, and our world’s most important challenges. The framework that guides this workshop is grounded in project based learning and place based pedagogy. Specifically, it emerges from several year-long collaborations between the art and education project, Borderland Collective, and the International School of the Americas, a public high school in South Texas. Each of these learning experienced focused on a different contentious topic including migration and energy policy. From these experiences, the following pedagogical principles emerged: 1) start with a question that opens minds, 2) focus on dialogue as action, 3) leverage art for inquiry, and 4) assess for liberation. In the workshop, participants will grapple with these principles as they collaboratively develop and refine their own project ideas.
