The aim of this chapter is to examine and evaluate three different conceptual metaphors that can be used to describe a conversational classroom environment that allows for deliberation, disagreement, and diversity, thereby making room for open dialogue on controversial issues. These conceptual metaphors are the classroom as a (1) safe space, (2) community of disagreement, and (3) facilitating environment. In my analysis, they all contribute to our understanding of what constitutes such an environment and how it can be realized. First, the concept of a safe space identifies some desirable qualities of a conversational classroom. The concept describes a social space in which participants experience relational safety and openness that allows them to share ideas and thoughts and have stimulating conversations without fear. Second, the concept of a community of disagreement facilitates a principal critique of a safe space as a representation of an idealized environment by distinguishing between intellectual safety and dignity safety. Most importantly, this distinction enables a differentiation between desirable and undesirable forms of safety in the classroom. Third, the concept of a facilitating environment adds a fresh perspective to the scholarly conversation. First, it helps articulate and elaborate how a desirable educational environment should enable students to overcome fear. Second, it highlights the educator’s responsibility to attend to the continuity of the students’ experience. I use this concept to argue that the educator should help create a social environment that respects students’ present capacities, but with an eye to the future and the development of these capacities.