Teacher under investigation for alleged liberalism

When a student comes out with some opinion or point that I don't agree with, I always say "that's fair -- there's a lot of people in the world who think the same way. People on the other side would say . . ."

Discussion and humour are what make education worth participating in. I don't downplay student's opinions (though if they are being rude or disrespectful, I smash them). I've been called on this by parents who are looking to cause problems, but I've never had a serious problem once they are shown how stupid or immature they are being.

 

As I mulled all this over a smoke, I realized this is actually quite a complicated situation.

A healthy democracy requires a politically active citizenry.

Students spend an enormous amount of time with their teachers. They learn not just about the subject matter, but quite a bit about being an adult as well.

I think it is a good thing for the young to be exposed to the political opinions of their teachers. This is not to say the teacher editing the content of the class, but rather his or her political opinions in general.

Society sends quite the mixed message: Young people, be politically active, but the adults you spend the most time with, outside of your parents, are not allowed to display their political opinions.

I think this particular example displays another ill effect of expected apolitical teachers: the fringes become the only opinions expressed. Your average teacher, with average political opinions, does not feel he or she should share them. But the wingnut with wingnut political views doesn't follow the rules.

Long story short: Expose the kids to lots of political views and they will filter out the loons themselves.

 

Indeed. And in addition, teach your children to take everything the teacher, test or textbook says with a grain of salt. Realize that everyone, including textbook authors, have an agenda and a bias. That doesn't mean throw the book out. Go ahead and read it, but don't consider anything to be 100% accurate, pure, unbiased capital-T "truth."

I suspect too many parents just send their kids off to school and expect them to absorb everything without question and then spit it all back out word-for-word the following day on a test. "Great job, son! You got an A!" The end result is an army of mindless drones who believe everything they read and see. A dream-come-true for politicians and advertisers, eh?

 

Then why bother. You may as well keep them home. That way you can also shield them from any "subversive" ideas. My point here, Sir Fink, is that I would not want my children to believe that education was a complete waste of time.

[ December 03, 2005, 06:33: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Education is not a waste of time. If you do not get enough of it, you might end up like a leftist.

 

I'm not saying shield them from subversive ideas, just teach them to not absorb everything blindly.

That's part of the reason why some folks freak out about a teacher like this. They assume their kids will just assume it's true because, by golly, teacher said so! Well kids, the teacher may be right some of the time and he may be half-right some of the time. Teach kids HOW to think, not WHAT to think.

Then they read something like this on a test and maybe have a laugh about it, assume the teacher's expressing his political views in a humorous way and shrug it off and answer the question (correctly!).

 

Sir Fink - I was taking your statement at face value. It seems - while I agree with your latter post - that your previous post indicated that teachers and textbooks are often suspect. And I agree with you that students should not follow anything by either blindly. I suppose you are making my point that the authority of teachers and the information in text books are not held in high regard by many. That was my original contention anyway - that both lack any real authority by many in society.

I think that learning, or education, is a mutual process between teachers, students and parents. I don't think teachers should tell their students what to think. But I do think they need to challenge them. For example, earlier I commented on teaching Jefferson. If I made the statement in a classroom to students that Jefferson was a great president and political thinker, I would then ask: How do recent presidents compare to Jefferson? How are they different, or how are they similar? For students to "realize" that Jefferson was a great president - if they agree with that premise - then they must have an opinion on recent presidents with which to gage that "realization" of Jefferson. But of course, I'm basically a Jeffersonian anyway.

 

To use your example of Jefferson, I have always seen my job as a teacher as one that involves teaching the students something along the lines of: "Jefferson is considered by many educated people to have been a great president. Let's look at the facts about his administration to see why this belief is so common." Students are free to come up with their own conclusions, but at least they have had exposure to the facts of what happened so they can form an educated opinion.

BTW, being a Canuck, I know very little about Jefferson -- I was merely using the example used earlier.