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With all due respect, I disagree that you need to tell the students what you beliefs are. Why do students need to hear your beliefs as a tool for checking what you are saying. Why not give them completely, utterly unbiased information to check, sacrificing your own opinions and beliefs to make sure there is zero opportunity for any student to be swayed to your way of thinking rather than arrive at an opinion on their own based on their personal belief system. I have read all your messages. I see too that you intend to teach a class about elections. Personally, after reading your posts, as intellectual as they are, as a parent, I would be shaking in my shoes to think my child is in one of your classes.
Teachers are my tool for educating my children. When the teachers have gone home for the day, or gone on vacation, or retired, or moved to another school, my child's education is still my responsibility. I rely on the opinions of and listen very carefully to my tools because I have to discern if they are in fact the best tools for my child, but they are still my tools. When it is all said and done, I am the one at fault for my child's success or failure, not the teacher. I realize not all parents think that way, but I do, and since I'm not very smart, I am sure other parents have thought of this already.
I hope you understand. I hope you will set your own opinions aside and use your obvious incredible gift of teaching to raise the level and build and pull out of students their own ability to form their own opinion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jps-teacher
Teachers who use their position to advance a political position really bother me.
Not everybody agrees with me, but I am a firm believer in telling my students what my beliefs are, at the outset, to give them a tool for checking what I am saying.
I do not believe it is possible to have a bias and not have that bias influence choice of classroom materials. So, I try to provide a buffer, instead.
With all due respect, I disagree that you need to tell the students what you beliefs are. Why do students need to hear your beliefs as a tool for checking what you are saying. Why not give them completely, utterly unbiased information to check, sacrificing your own opinions and beliefs to make sure there is zero opportunity for any student to be swayed to your way of thinking rather than arrive at an opinion on their own based on their personal belief system. I have read all your messages. I see too that you intend to teach a class about elections. Personally, after reading your posts, as intellectual as they are, as a parent, I would be shaking in my shoes to think my child is in one of your classes.
Teachers are my tool for educating my children. When the teachers have gone home for the day, or gone on vacation, or retired, or moved to another school, my child's education is still my responsibility. I rely on the opinions of and listen very carefully to my tools because I have to discern if they are in fact the best tools for my child, but they are still my tools. When it is all said and done, I am the one at fault for my child's success or failure, not the teacher. I realize not all parents think that way, but I do, and since I'm not very smart, I am sure other parents have thought of this already.
I hope you understand. I hope you will set your own opinions aside and use your obvious incredible gift of teaching to raise the level and build and pull out of students their own ability to form their own opinion.
"Teachers are my tool"? A computer is a tool, a stapler is a tool. You might want to rethink that metaphor.
And older-aged students (teenagers +) will often try and ferret out a teacher's politics during a discussion, so it can be quiet useful to lay it out there.
Computers and staplers are office supplies. Tools are extremely valuable and the right or wrong tool can make or break a project. In the case of teachers, they are wise counsel to whom I listen, but the decision is ultimately mine, and I am sure you would agree with that. I am sure students are tempted to take the easy way out and find out what their instructor thinks. I would hope the instructor would not allow the student to succumb to taking that path of least resistence, particularly when it comes to politics as a course or class.
Quote:
Originally Posted by helenejen
"Teachers are my tool"? A computer is a tool, a stapler is a tool. You might want to rethink that metaphor.
And older-aged students (teenagers +) will often try and ferret out a teacher's politics during a discussion, so it can be quiet useful to lay it out there.
Last edited by carolac; 11-17-2008 at 09:21 PM..
Reason: typo
Personal attacks are against the TOS.
This is not the education forum.
You didn't see my last post about this.
Is it not true that you had earlier refused to accept the exact same facts that I provided in response to your post in this thread?
You had been provided verifiable facts long before, but chose to not believe them and chose instead to cling to your belief and post it in this thread. That is exactly what many of the posters in this thread accuse Republicans of doing, and call them anti-intellectual in doing so. I was merely pointing out that you had also eschewed facts to cling to a personally-held belief.
Computers and staplers are office supplies. Tools are extremely valuable and the right or wrong tool can make or break a project. In the case of teachers, they are wise counsel to whom I listen, but the decision is ultimately mine, nd I am sure you would agree with that. I am sure students are tempted to take the easy way out and find out what their instructor thinks. I would hope the instructor would not allow the student to succumb to taking that path of least resistence, particularly when it comes to politics as a course or class.
No, the decision is not ultimately yours. Unless you own the school where your teachers teach. The classroom belongs to the teacher, not the parent. Further, your child's teacher is not your "tool." Just as children are not a "project." And teachers are not beholden to parents, in terms of their pedagogical approaches.
Is it not true that you had earlier refused to accept the exact same facts that I provided in response to your post in this thread?
You had been provided verifiable facts long before, but chose to not believe them and chose instead to cling to your belief and post it in this thread. That is exactly what many of the posters in this thread accuse Republicans of doing, and call them anti-intellectual in doing so. I was merely pointing out that you had also eschewed facts to cling to a personally-held belief.
I for one do not want to hijack this forum talking about an education issue with you all night long. FYI, you did not convince me that I am totally wrong. The evidence you produced was not incontrovertible, and I am not goint to issue some mea-culpa for disagreeing with you.
Why not give them completely, utterly unbiased information to check, sacrificing your own opinions and beliefs to make sure there is zero opportunity for any student to be swayed to your way of thinking rather than arrive at an opinion on their own based on their personal belief system. I have read all your messages. I see too that you intend to teach a class about elections. Personally, after reading your posts, as intellectual as they are, as a parent, I would be shaking in my shoes to think my child is in one of your classes.
When it is all said and done, I am the one at fault for my child's success or failure, not the teacher. I realize not all parents think that way, but I do, and since I'm not very smart, I am sure other parents have thought of this already.
I hope you understand. I hope you will set your own opinions aside and use your obvious incredible gift of teaching to raise the level and build and pull out of students their own ability to form their own opinion.
Starting at the top, just for a change:
1) Please give me an example of "completely, utterly unbiased information." Especially, give it to me as a function of this election, but, honestly, even when I am teaching math, there are biases as simple as which text book I use or what problems I give.
2) I am sorry, but not surprised, that you might "be shaking in my shoes to think my child is in one of your classes." I think trying to judge the impact of my teaching from reading my posts on a message board is difficult, at best, but you feel as you feel. I am reminded of a couple of pieces that explore having teens at least partially taught by those who are competent, but whose views are counter to your own, as a better means of preparing the teens for life no longer under your active protection. I think there is something to be said for this - in either direction - but that it takes faith in one's child and one's own teaching to do this. (This is nota knock at you - it is just a thought prompted by what you wrote.)
3) You observed that "I am the one at fault for my child's success or failure, not the teacher." I disagree with the notion of fault, as a general thing. You bear some of the responsibility for your child's education. The teacher bears some of it, as well. Ultimately, though, your child bears the brunt of the responsibility for his/her success or failure. Nothing I do or you do can force a child to learn the things we may wish were learned. Little we can do can stop a child from learning, whether it be things we want, things we do not want, or things we never even considered. They learn. What they learn is often not even remotely connected to the lessons we meant to be offering.
4) You suggest that I should work to "build and pull out of students their own ability to form their own opinion." Different students learn different ways. For some, a tabula rasa is the right way to go. For others, having an authority figure against whom they can argue and measure themselves provides a more effective approach. For still others, they wish to hear the give and take.
With my students, few, if any, will be entering without their own opinions. The chance of a clean slate is pretty negligible, though I do seek information prior to starting instruction to see where my students are coming from. One of my goals is to avoid teaching them what they already know.
I am, in class, far more focused on helping them to develop questioning skills than on our coming to conclusions from our discussions. It should be a lively time.
I will be surprised if any of the students' parents are as dismayed or anxious as you, either before or after - and I will have a bunch of them in my class for parents, I suspect, so I will hear from them or my bosses will, if I step over a line.
The answer is obvious. Let them home school and skip college. They can work in the factories and fields.
We will take care of business.
*removes tongue from cheek*
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