Ideas

IDEA #9: Talking Perspectives: Playing Devil’s Advocate

“It may not change the students’ minds, but using the devil’s advocate approach challenges them to expand their analysis, perspective, and understanding of an issue.”²

Learning Intention

Whether in discussion or textual analysis, playing Devil’s advocate provides students the opportunity to see an issue from an alternative viewpoint to build empathy for the opposition and/or strengthen their own arguments. “If students are not challenged by their teacher or one another to defend their stance on an issue, the quality of analysis will often be superficial.”² Furthermore, students are more likely to be engaged with and inspired by the discussion and may be “more likely to want to be involved in giving input, asking questions, and deriving conclusions.”²

Overview

Intentionally expose students to multiple points of view by providing texts, videos, or lectures from both (or all) sides of an issue. Then have students engage deeply with those ideas, comparing them and contrasting them to identify both commonalities and differences.²

Options

• Set up a debate. Assign students to various sides of an issue (or let them choose) and then invite them to make a case for their assigned perspective as part of a small-group or class-wide debate.
• Play devil's advocate with yourself for "dramatic and theatrical" effect.¹ Similar to the stations approach in the Speaking in Tongues idea, use different spots in the room from which to argue one side and then the other of a particular issue.
• Challenge the prevailing opinion during a class discussion. Take on the "enjoyable position of being the devil's advocate, challenging whichever set of ideas the class seems most amenable to." ³

Considerations

• Create the climate: Be sure to start by developing a comfortable, cooperative learning environment. See Idea #1: Safe Spaces for Difficult Dialogue.
• Set your opinion aside: "To employ this pedagogical approach, teachers must be comfortable voicing and defending arguments with which they personally disagree."² It can be challenging, but done well, it can have a profound impact on students' willingness and ability to consider alternative points of view themselves.
• Accept ambiguity: Help students push past the frustration of feeling like there are no good answers if every viewpoint is valid. Recognizing the complexity of an issue challenges students to search for more nuanced explanations and solutions than they first considered. ²

References