SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

Amber Strong Makaiau

Want to Teach Civility? Start With IntellectualSafety.
As educators, we are in the privileged position of creating opportunities for ourstudents to experience democratic life as it could be, instead of simply
recreating democratic life as it is. This is one of my core beliefs about therelationship between democracy and schools. It is also the reason why I begin
every single class that I teach by going through the process of establishingintellectual safety.

Intellectual safety is a term coined by Dr. Thomas Jackson, a philosophyprofessor at the University of Hawai‘i. Jackson has been practicing Philosophy
for Children (P4C) for over 30 years. About intellectual safety, he writes:

Certainly, classrooms must be physically safe places.
For dialogue and inquiry to occur they must be
emotionally and intellectually safe as well. In an
intellectually safe place there are no putdowns andno comments intended to belittle, undermine,negate, devalue, or ridicule. Within this place, thegroup accepts virtually any question or comment, solong as it is respectful of the other members of thecircle. What develops is a growing trust among theparticipants and with it the courage to present one’s
own thoughts, however tentative initially, oncomplex and difficult issues (p. 460).¹
Given the “profoundly negative effect” that the 2016 presidential campaign
has had on schoolchildren, there has never been a more important time tofocus on intellectually safe classrooms.
https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/want-to-teach-civility-start-with-intellectual-safety

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Want to Teach Civility? Start With Intellectual Safety. | Learning for JusticeDirectly in line with the culturally responsive teaching movement,² theestablishment of intellectually safe classroom communities of inquiry helps toensure that the cultures, languages, histories, socioeconomic backgrounds andother aspects of students’ and teachers’ identities are included and validated
during the building of relationships and the co-construction of knowledge.³ It
is a process that I liketo start on the first day of class by introducing

mystudents to the concept of intellectual safety. I write the definition of
intellectual safety on the board: “All participants
students and teachers, mustofin our community,

feel free to ask any question or state any pointview as long as respect for all persons is honored.”circleThen I put a big

around it.

I make myself vulnerable and use

examples from my own life to illustratetimes when I have felt intellectually safe and times when I have not. From
there, my students and I work together to thinkclassroom

environment that we want to create. We list

counter-examples from our diverse
explain

about the type of
examples andbackgrounds and experiences to help us

what intellectual safety will look like in thecontext of our sharedclassroom space. For example, a group of high school social studies students
and I recently came up with the following:
Examples of Intellectual Safety: speaking nicely to others, allowed to makemistakes, open to sharing real life experiences, comfortable environment, easy
to speak, respectful of the learning process, friendship, knowing people,encouragement, OK to say “I don’t know,” you want to come back, makerelationships a priority, no judgment, collective efforts, everyone working
together, not teased, sense of belonging, appreciation, support, aware of what
others need, and attentive listening.
Counter-examples to Intellectual Safety: make others turn on you, snidecomments, not aware of other people’s feelings or perspectives, forcing
someone to do something, ganging up on someone, intentionally hurting
others, not understanding, spreading rumors, people make you think you arestupid, negative spotlight, and judge a person based on their past.
When the intellectual safety concept map is complete, we make an agreement
to put our words into practice and establish classroom routines that will help
us maintain an intellectually safe learning environment throughout the rest of
the school year.
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Want to Teach Civility? Start With Intellectual Safety. | Learning for JusticeOver the years, the high school students and pre-service teachers I’ve worked
with have often commented on the critical role that intellectual safety playedin helping our classroom community cultivate and nurture a collaborative civicspace. As one male high school senior put it,

When intellectual safety…is highly stressed…[t]hisencourages students to be free thinkers and it allows
students to voice their opinions based on theirvarious upbringings and cultural backgrounds … This
class is cool because we are able to discuss any topic
concerning culture or race. It is safe to discuss things
here and voice your opinion, it is a freedom that wedon’t really have in other classes.
This student’s summary illustrates the ways in which intellectual safety
provides students and teachers with the necessary conditions for experiencing
what ideal democracy feels like. So when they are faced with problems ofdemocracy outside of the classroom, they will be ready to draw from theseexperiences and turn those ideals into reality. This is an extremely importanttakeaway for teachers, who, from now until November, will be charged withthe task of finding effective strategies for modeling civility and democratic life
as it could be, instead of simply recreating democratic life as it is.

Makaiau is an associate specialist at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Collegeof Education Institute for Teacher Education Secondary Program and thedirector of curriculum and research at the University of Hawai‘i Uehiro
Academy for Philosophy and Ethics in Education.
1. Jackson, T. (2001). The art and craft of ‘gently Socratic’ inquiry. In A. L. Costa(Ed.), Developing minds: A resource book for teaching thinking (pp. 459–465).
Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
2. Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, andpractice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
3. Castagno, A. E. & Brayboy, B. M. J. (2008). Culturally responsive schooling forindigenous youth: A review of the literature. Review of Educational Research,
78(4), 941–993.
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