The explosion of fake news, "hoaxes," and social media make it increasingly difficult for students to tell the difference between fact and fiction. And today's students, like the rest of us, can easily fall victim to "motivated reasoning" -- the tendency to believe what they want to believe, not what the evidence points to. The educators in this episode discuss the challenges this poses for educators and for our democracy. They also recommend pedagogical strategies that invite students to share their views, without recrimination, about controversial topics and that help students develop opinions based on reasons and evidence. Panelists include: * Wayne Journell, Associate Professor of Secondary Social Studies Education, University of North Carolina, Greensboro * Jennifer Hauver, Associate Professor of Education, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, Virginia * Victor Rios, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara

Malik Boykin (aka Malik Starx) is an accomplished musician and a professor of psychology at Brown University where he teaches a course on stigma and prejudice. Boykin shares two transformational teacher stories--the first from second grade when he was sent to the principal's office for raising questions about Christopher Columbus. His second story is about Dr. Jaia John, his social psychology professor at Howard University who carved out time at the start each class for students to share a poem, a personal story, or even a musical performance that had some relation to the course content.  Inspired by Dr. John, Boykin became a social psychologist and, like John, encourages his students to share something personal at the start of his classes. One of his students, Gabrielle Tanksley, describes what it's like to be one of Boykin's students, and she reads an extraordinary poem she shared recently in class.  Starx wrote and performed "Dancing for Freedom," the soundtrack played in this Teacher Story episode. At the end, he describes the inspiration for the song.