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It was an AP class that the college I worked for at the time was partnering with for dual credit.
The realization I had was that what *I* consider, and probably what the teacher considered, to be liberal and conservative is not what teenagers consider to be liberal and conservative. Or even important issues. I remember thinking during that class, that it almost didn't matter what the teacher said. The students have their own ideas influenced far more profoundly by their peers than by their teacher. For me, the 1980s is a tangible time period that has some influence over me. But for them? It's ancient and they don't care.
Most people on CD don't understand what liberal and conservative mean.
High school students think 9/11 is ancient history. Most of today's college students were born after 9/11.
Every comment a teacher makes is not indoctrination.
I would say it depends on the age being taught. In my opinion, my 2nd grade teacher's comment about Mario Cuomo being "an extremely good governor" and her kicking me out of class for saying that my grandmother disagreed, was completely inappropriate, since we were too young to understand politics, and were taught to believe that everything an adult said was a fact. That was wrong. I have less of a problem with college professors and even high school teachers who make similar comments, since, by then, we understand the concept of politics, and know that anything that anybody says is biased, and is an opinion, not a fact. We may have to parrot back what the teacher says if we want a good grade, but at least we can form our own beliefs at that age.
Let's see. If a parent wanted to complain that a teacher was being either liberal or conservative, who would the parent most likely go to (at least first)? The principal (or a vice principal). And if the parent decided, instead, to go over the principals head and call the school board member or the superintendent (and our parents were sophisticated enough that they didn't hesitate to do so), guess who the superintendent or school board member would then call -- the principal. In 13 years in that school I received complaints about only one teacher teaching politics.
During the era where you were an administrator, parents, rightly or wrongly, tended to side with the teacher in cases like that, so they were not likely to complain. Also, they likely knew that you (and your superiors) would just side with the teacher, so there was no point in complaining anyway.
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And here was the interesting thing. I kept a tally. And over time, the complaints that that teacher was a liberal were approximately equal to the complaints that that teacher was a conservative (or a Democrat versus a Republican). And I'll tell you why. She taught American history in our gifted program, and she did quite a few in-class debates on various topics. Students could take either position in the debate, and sometimes on some topics, no student would take one position, so the teacher would take that position. But again, the complaints were almost exactly 50-50.
I had a teacher in high school would would do similar debates, and there were clearly times that he was just trying to play the devil's advocate. I'm guessing some of the students may not have picked up on that. Also, in college, I had an economics teacher who, on the first day of class, told us that his salary is more money than most of us will ever see in our lifetimes, but that he pays less than us for flights, for car insurance, pays less interest than us on loans, and collects more interest than us on savings accounts. A lot of students were annoyed by his comment. But I think they missed the point: the professor was never trying to say any of that was fair, just that it's reality.
Also, I don't know if this was what was going on, but in some cultures, conservative and liberal have different meanings than they do in the US.
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What came up multiple times, however, was christian teachers attempting to bring their religion into the classroom.
That I never experienced. The closest I ever saw to that was a literature class in high school where the teacher made connections between the Bible and the Grapes of Wrath. And we were given several options for an extra credit assignment, one of which was comparing the Grapes of Wrath to the Book of Job from the Bible. A girl in the class complained. Again, she missed the point, that the teacher was using the Bible as literature, not as a source of religious indoctrination. Nearly everybody in my school was at least nominally either Catholic or Jewish, and both religions accept the Old Testament, which Job is part of. Plus, there were many other options for extra credit, so you didn't have to pick the one involving Job if you did not want to.
I would say it depends on the age being taught. In my opinion, my 2nd grade teacher's comment about Mario Cuomo being "an extremely good governor" and her kicking me out of class for saying that my grandmother disagreed, was completely inappropriate, since we were too young to understand politics, and were taught to believe that everything an adult said was a fact. That was wrong. I have less of a problem with college professors and even high school teachers who make similar comments, since, by then, we understand the concept of politics, and know that anything that anybody says is biased, and is an opinion, not a fact. We may have to parrot back what the teacher says if we want a good grade, but at least we can form our own beliefs at that age.
At some point getting into a political argument with a 2nd grader is highly unproductive. It baffles me why a teacher would even care what an 8 year old had to say about the governor. I'd be impressed enough that a kid knew the governor's name and probably say "good question" and suggest a newspaper to read.
I'd categorize that behavior you described as general unprofessionalism.
The political context of 1960-63 was so different that in reality it's impossible to say what party JFK would be today, because we don't know how precisely how he'd react to modern issues.
At the time he was a moderate Democrat with a fairly light Senate record and few concrete positions on domestic policy. He tended to follow the party's position. His main focus as president was foriegn policy and the Cold War, on which he was fairly hawkish for the time. Contexts that are today so foriegn to young people they might as well be another country.
I had this experience watching a high school teacher's lesson on the Reagan presidency. This was in a conservative town no less. The teacher presented materials and a video on Reagan to the class and then they got into groups and had to evaluate him as a "good" or "bad" president. Most of the materials were, to me, biased in favor of him. They basically argued he won the Cold War and cut taxes which was a major accomplishment. I figured the students would say he was great because he cut taxes and won the Cold War.. it's what the teacher presepnted.
What the students zeroed in on was a fairly brief snippet from the video that described Reagan's reaction to the HIV/AIDS crisis. They were livid that he blamed gay people for AIDS. They wouldn't let that go. I was floored. But then I realized they don't care about taxes and the Cold War is irrelevant to them. But they have gay friends.
Very well said. Another factor is that none of us know what life experiences we or somebody else would have had growing up, so it's hard to say what political views us or anybody else would have had during a different era.
When judging people, I think it is important to take into account the standards of the day and what was considered acceptable then.
At some point getting into a political argument with a 2nd grader is highly unproductive. It baffles me why a teacher would even care what an 8 year old had to say about the governor. I'd be impressed enough that a kid knew the governor's name and probably say "good question" and suggest a newspaper to read.
I'd categorize that behavior you described as general unprofessionalism.
You raise a very good point. Was she trying to indoctrinate us at an early age when students would still accept everything a teacher said as fact? Or was her intent for us to tell our parents to vote for Cuomo?
I would say that my 2nd grade teacher and my grandmother were both wrong. Instead of my teacher saying that Cuomo was an "extremely good governor" and kicking me out of class for pointing out that my grandmother said otherwise, she should have told us, in terms that 2nd graders could understand, what policies of Cuomo she liked. And my grandmother, instead of saying that Cuomo was "getting jerkier and jerkier every day", she should have explained, in terms that I could understand at that age, what policies Cuomo had that she disliked.
The public school system wont ever be worth a damn until the lobbyists, unions, and political charged teachers are banned.
If a class of any age is voluntarily told by their teacher what their political affiliation and/or what their sex/gender is, they should be fired immediately. Teach kids math, science, true history, English, and finance. That is the job, not indoctrination.
Good post, but ha-ha toâ€true history†remark.
It is as political as it gets
clown comment. lol. I did see that your spelling comment was deleted by an Admin I'm guessing, so unfortunately I didn't get to read your sarcasm, but good catch.
When was your last year of work? You describe nothing of the reality in the last 10-15 years. You're wrong about tenure and the NY ex above is a great one, wrong about political classrooms and you refuse to acknowledge the disaster of your own state, wrong about the " PE to admin" , etc... You sound like the typical old school "I am always right" arrogant admin. Not surprised that you defend the PS system being that you spent a lifetime kissing the ring of a bad government program in exchange for a pension.
I am telling you what I have experienced. And you are basically saying that I am wrong because I don't agree with you.
clown comment. lol. I did see that your spelling comment was deleted by an Admin I'm guessing, so unfortunately I didn't get to read your sarcasm, but good catch.
When was your last year of work? You describe nothing of the reality in the last 10-15 years. You're wrong about tenure and the NY ex above is a great one, wrong about political classrooms and you refuse to acknowledge the disaster of your own state, wrong about the " PE to admin" , etc... You sound like the typical old school "I am always right" arrogant admin. Not surprised that you defend the PS system being that you spent a lifetime kissing the ring of a bad government program in exchange for a pension.
After reading this thread I just gotta ask. What sport did you coach along with your PE teaching?
The reason I ask is that some sports seem to attract a certain type of mentality that lends itself to a political persuasion one way or another.
Well, consider your comments. Let's start here. You're clearly making the statement that the person you're speaking to only sees liberal indoctrination but would be ok with "right-sided indoctrination."
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Originally Posted by phetaroi
My guess is that you wouldn't mind if it was right-sided indoctrination.
Then we move here where you state you haven't seen it, with "it" clearly being left-sided.
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Originally Posted by phetaroi
Well, sorry, but in the 3 states I worked in -- NYS (in a red area), Maryland, and Virginia, I didn't see the "pushy, confrontational, and angry". To some extent, those 3 descriptors and in the eye of the beholder. I see your posts on this topic as being "pushy, confrontational, and angry".
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To which I asked if you were willing to apply the same criteria to your own views of what you see and don't see, filtered by your beliefs, as you so quickly accuse others.
Your answer was to first change the topic to what parents did or didn't do (which much as MITSGUY said, most parents simply are going to tell the kids to get along with the teacher and not raise an issue because they know talking to the school is both pointless and likely to by bringing retaliation down on their kid for daring to disagree with the teacher. I know in our own case there were several things over the years, but we held our tongue and grumbled to the other parents (who did likewise) but none of us said anything knowing the best course was to get our kids graduated and out of there as safely as possible. Your reaction below and the fact that despite my trying to have a civil debate you seem to find ways to try to throw a jab at me personally, you're merely proving why it would have been pointless to complain to the teacher or principal. Why bother to complain to someone who isn't listening and holds great power over our kids' futures.
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Originally Posted by phetaroi
Let's see. If a parent wanted to complain that a teacher was being either liberal or conservative, who would the parent most likely go to (at least first)? The principal (or a vice principal). And if the parent decided, instead, to go over the principals head and call the school board member or the superintendent (and our parents were sophisticated enough that they didn't hesitate to do so), guess who the superintendent or school board member would then call -- the principal. In 13 years in that school I received complaints about only one teacher teaching politics. And here was the interesting thing. I kept a tally. And over time, the complaints that that teacher was a liberal were approximately equal to the complaints that that teacher was a conservative (or a Democrat versus a Republican). And I'll tell you why. She taught American history in our gifted program, and she did quite a few in-class debates on various topics. Students could take either position in the debate, and sometimes on some topics, no student would take one position, so the teacher would take that position. But again, the complaints were almost exactly 50-50.
But of course, you -- as always -- know better than the person who lived it.
What came up multiple times, however, was christian teachers attempting to bring their religion into the classroom.
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