Should teachers be aloud to promote their personal political beliefs in the classroom?

[Randomstudent]

I would stay it depends on the school. Public K-12 absolutely not. Those are state funded schools and many students in K-12, no offense, are imho not developed enought to handle political discourse independant of parental advisement. Private schools are a different matter however, and parents who send their kids there have a better idea of what they are getting their kids into. In colleges and universities it should absolutely be allowed. Some of us are studying politics and need to have political discussions in class. Additionally people are developed enough by that age to reason for themselves and debate fosters that reasoning. Finally if you do not like a college or unversity for being too liberal or conservative do not go. No one is forcing you to attend university.

[Macintosh Sauce]

This is important for me because I am presently studying to become a secondary Social Science teacher. I don't think a teacher should force their own political beliefs upon students. If students ask, you can tell them and that is about it. A teacher is supposed to present both sides to any argument so students can make their own decisions on what is right or wrong. It's called being a professional...

[SactoBankerGirl]

Ha ha, I wish luck for any teacher who tries to force their political views on my son. He loves to get into political arguments with teachers in front of the whole class. He's being doing it since 7th grade.

I taught him a long time ago that this is okay as long as you do three things: 1) Make sure you can back up every statement you make. There's nothing worse than being proven wrong in a situation like this. 2) Make sure the teacher would have no way to hold this against you. 3) Always be respectful.

[Austin-Willy]

Originally Posted by SactoBankerGirl

Ha ha, I wish luck for any teacher who tries to force their political views on my son. He loves to get into political arguments with teachers in front of the whole class. He's being doing it since 7th grade.

I taught him a long time ago that this is okay as long as you do three things: 1) Make sure you can back up every statement you make. There's nothing worse than being proven wrong in a situation like this. 2) Make sure the teacher would have no way to hold this against you. 3) Always be respectful.

I don't see how you could ever do this unless your grade was 100% based on objective testing, which I never saw.

[newflowers]

While teachers should not be allowed to force their political opinions nor even tell what they are - every time I read the title of this post, I think students should not be ALLOWED to ask if teachers are ALOUD unless we are talking about the volume of the speech.

[antredd]

Originally Posted by Haaziq

Absolutely not.

Religious and political beliefs should never be taught in the classroom. Teaching about them is different.

This thread brings me back to a career decisions teacher I had my sophomore year in high school. She could not go for one day without talking about how much she hates George Bush. I'm neither liberal nor conservative (Libertarian), so I'm generally left out of these sort of things. The arguments are usually between the right and left, so it's not like what she was saying offended me in any way (I don't like George Bush, but I personally thought he was just a slight bit better than Kerry. Not by much though. Kerry had a hard time making up his mind on decisions.). I just don't think people should be trying to press what they believe on others. While there was never any objections to what she said, I'm almost positive that there were 1-2 Bush supporters in that class, even though nobody came out and said it.

I agree with you. Even though I only teach 4th graders, I think it's my job to teach my students how to analyze things and think for themselves. One thing I tell my students is that they don't want to be slaves to having others think for them. We have too many people who just react to things based on their emotions instead of looking at the facts.

I remember when there was a young 14 year old boy who was shot and killed by the police after he had taken them on a high speed police chase. I remember how many of my students reacted negatively to how the police shot and killed this innocent boy after he crashed the stolen car into someone's house, and then tried to run over the police, using the stolen car as a weapon. I remember many of my students reacting to it as the police being wrong for shooting an innocent boy.

What I did was asked them was the police justified for shooting the boy after I gave them all of the facts about why the police shot him. I told them that the boy was 14, and he wasn't of legal age to be driving the car. I told them that he stole this car late at night on a Sunday schoool night where he should have been home in bed. I told my students that when the police was called and spotted him driving the stolen car, instead of him stopping, he took off causing the police to chase him, which endangered, not only his life the lives of the policemen chasing him. Then I told my class that he lossed control of the car and ran into a house. After stopping, he would not get out the car after the police repeatedly telling him to get out. Instead of him getting out of the vehicle, he decided to put the car in reverse and tried to run over the policemen, now using the car as a weapon. I said the police were left with no choice but to shoot him in order stop him from being a further harm to himself or others.

After I gave my students all of those facts, they all agreed and said that the police shooting him was justified. I still have one student who felt that the police should have just jumped out of the way. Most of my students laughed at this student's reasoning and said that either way, the boy's death was his fault after looking at all of the facts.

I told my students that before they react to anything, just look at the facts first, then base their reaction or opinions on the facts. I told them that too many people react without knowing or understand what they are reacting. It was a good lesson and a good topic of discussion, without me having them lean to what I thought about the boy being shot by the police.

[Huckleberry3911948]

perhaps not. but the public ed trend is ongoing and highly successful. its a campaign to stripe the authority of the school completely away thus rendering them utterly disfunctional. much like our police and our homes.