Attending to Messy Politics, Bodies, and Pedagogical Situations While Teaching Honesty

In this brief essay, I respond to four critics of my most recent book, Teaching Honesty in a Populist Era: Emphasizing Truth in the Education of Citizens (Oxford University Press, 2024). I attend to their concerns regarding who is included in the “we” of the fundamental civic question, “What should we do?” That discussion urges me to consider Black pragmatists and feminists who draw attention to the deep impact of injustice and the many ways in which bodies complicate epistemological accounts of truth and civic reasoning. I also take up some of the more applied concerns of teachers who may struggle to employ my suggestions within deeply partisan contexts and amidst heightened punishments for taking up challenging matters of democracy in schools.