In the past, issues of a controversial nature were often avoided, in order to allow a teacher to maintain a value neutral position. Educators now are increasingly advocating that students should share their values in order to gain understanding of the values of others.  This includes questioning authoritative voices and positions.
 
Any discussion of issues requires that social skills are explicitly practised if all students are to participate effectively.  Taking turns, listening and disagreeing in an agreeable manner are some of the skills which facilitate understanding of a range of viewpoints.
 
A number of value-clarification strategies may be used to give students opportunities to understand their own positions on an issue and hear the perspectives of others.  These include:

• Corners. Moving to stand under a heading - Agree, Disagree,  
   Strongly  Agree, Strongly Disagree - in corners of the room in    response to a statement about the issue.

• Continuum.  Standing on an imaginary line drawn across the    classroom to represent a continuum from Strongly Disagree to    Strongly Agree.

•  Voting. Voting in response to an issue or statement according
    to a range of choices.

In using this strategy, it is important to debrief students following the
role-play, and allow opportunities for students to take on differing roles
at times throughout.
 
Students can work in groups or pairs to generate a list of issues that they consider important in their lives, in their local community, in Australia, and globally. Newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and other media can be used to access issues.

After generating a class list of such issues, the students might select those that they wish to explore further.

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