Should there be limits on what teachers can teach?

[ginshun]

This question has been spawned from the Ward Churchill debate in the other thread. The question just seems to keep popping into my head, and I thought it was a little out of the scope of the other thread.

Should anything a teacher says in his/her classroom be up for debate, or can they say anything they please?

Is there a limit, or a line that should not be crossed? Should public opinion have any say in it?

 

[OUMoose]

This question has been spawned from the Ward Churchill debate in the other thread. The question just seems to keep popping into my head, and I thought it was a little out of the scope of the other thread.

Should anything a teacher says in his/her classroom be up for debate, or can they say anything they please?

Is there a limit, or a line that should not be crossed? Should public opinion have any say in it?

Can we be a little more specific at least about the age group?

The problem with public opinion is that you'll never have a unanimous decision. That's what makes this society so great. Not only free speech but free thought. Please allow me to indulge in an illustration briefly.

Your child and many others are enrolled in a school. You're a good parent and are involved in PTA and whatnot. Come to find out, there's a history teacher expounding on something that happened in the past that you don't agree with. However, some of the other parents in the school do agree with the teacher. In this case, you are in the majority of public opinion, though. Therefore, your group of people has the teacher removed. Some of the other parents pull their children out of the school citing various reasons, and put them in a different school more akin to their opinions. This cycle continues until everyone in the school meets with your approval, and everyone in the other school meets with the other people's approval. What just happened? You segregated the student population based on an ideal.

OK. Let us extrapolate this out a little bit. The children in the first school that you're now pleased with go through their entire education that way, learning a specific way without an outside source for debate. Now they are young adults, with a specific set of education-induced tenents that they formulate opinions based off of. However, without the element of debate, they have a difficult time rationalizing and making up their own minds about other topics. Therefore, they choose a more isolationist approach to raise their children in, and go to the same school to learn the same things. Over and over again this happens until our society begins to revert away from our current system and ends up back in a tribal society, where people don't leave the ideals of their group of compatriots.

Perhaps this is an extreme example, and somewhat of a naysayers outlook, but this is a forum for debate, and I'm throwing it out there for conversation. If you would like a more real world example, take a look at the amish and their ideas about outsiders with differing opinions than their own.

Please note I'm not promoting something inheirently dangerous for children, but as they grow and learn to think on their own, I do believe the kid gloves should come off and some thought provoking questions should be asked.

 

[ginshun]

Great response, this is what I am looking for, peoples opinions. There are no right or wrong anwers here.

The problem with public opinion is that you'll never have a unanimous decision. That's what makes this society so great. Not only free speech but free thought. Please allow me to indulge in an illustration briefly.

Your child and many others are enrolled in a school. You're a good parent and are involved in PTA and whatnot. Come to find out, there's a history teacher expounding on something that happened in the past that you don't agree with. However, some of the other parents in the school do agree with the teacher. In this case, you are in the majority of public opinion, though. Therefore, your group of people has the teacher removed. Some of the other parents pull their children out of the school citing various reasons, and put them in a different school more akin to their opinions. This cycle continues until everyone in the school meets with your approval, and everyone in the other school meets with the other people's approval. What just happened? You segregated the student population based on an ideal.

OK, I see your point, but given this example, isn't it just as likely (if not moreso) for the same thing to happen if the teacher isn't removed? i.e. since the majority of the parents don't like the teachers opinion, they pull there kids out and send them to the other school?

 

[kenpo tiger]

What if there isn't another school?

What if you can't afford private school?

 

[Flatlander]

Great response, this is what I am looking for, peoples opinions. There are no right or wrong anwers here.


OK, I see your point, but given this example, isn't it just as likely (if not moreso) for the same thing to happen if the teacher isn't removed? i.e. since the majority of the parents don't like the teachers opinion, they pull there kids out and send them to the other school?

Perhaps, although it will be the parents who choose to move their children that do so. The parents who espouse freedom of thought, and would like to expose their children to diverse opinions will not be forced into this type of pigeonholing scenario.

 

[TigerWoman]

And then we have teachers who have tenure. What job in this day and age has that kind of security? I've seen some really baaad art teachers who could not only not draw, could not teach the subject with any enthusiasm, and didn't care how he graded or if the student came a way with any improvement or love of art. He handed out assignments and graded them. Period.

Also a music band teacher with tenure. Discouraged and demoted the talented band students because they didn't get on the bandwagon in the summer prior to even joining band and raise money for a trip to be the week of Christmas. That was just one of the things he did. So many lives he affected negatively just like the art teacher but worse. He went out of his way to be mean. I was glad he finally "retired" at 45. I fought, talked to the counselor, principal, school board and music boosters. But I know I wasn't the only parent upset but we had not way of knowing who we were. I firmly believe the story that he had a public appointed job and tenure so he was immune-no recourse, to be wrong wrong wrong. And no there was not other band in town other than the really old guys getting together in the summer.

This may be soapbox since this has long been over but teachers AND principals, curriculum directors, etc etc. should not be autonomous. I don't know how many times I was talked to condescendingly to have changes later appear in the curriculum. And our school board should not have been so spineless. I know, I probably should have ran for school board, but had enough on my plate. TW

 

[Flatlander]

And then we have teachers who have tenure..... but had enough on my plate. TW

How exactly is this related to the topic of the thread? I believe the discussion is specifically addressing free speech in the classroom, not job security, not subject knowledge, etc.

 

[TigerWoman]

Should anything a teacher says in his/her classroom be up for debate, or can they say anything they please?

Is there a limit, or a line that should not be crossed? Should public opinion have any say in it?

I took this as what a teacher says to a student as in demeaning. Also what a teacher can do as well as say. The music teacher crossed the line. If this doesn't add anything to the topic, delete my post. Sorry! TW

 

[BrandiJo]

Im in college now, and my major is elem ed, i know there will be limits on what i am allowed to teach, but i dont think it should be that way, but everyone has to answer to someone and if the person you are answering to disaproves then you dont get to do things how you had them planned. But the best you could do would be alter the plans to make everyone happy but still keep your lesson in mind.

Teachers should be free to express there own thoughts and ideas too, as long as they are not forceful, or harmful of another, i see no reason why we should censor what is said ...keeping in mind the age group being taught.

 

[rmcrobertson]

As someone who recently was tenured--after seventeen years of assorted work after grad school!--I could try to explain the reasons for tenure. Or I could try and explain what's life's like for those of us stupid enough to go into academics...which, while it certainly isn't as stressful as, say, living in Palestine, does have its little problems.

But that won't do the slightest good. Too many folks have either, a) bought the right-wing party line on this subject, b) lost sight of their own issues while projecting them onto teachers, c) bought into the idea that because they're treated unfairly by the culture and the economy we've all built, everybody else should suffer too.

So what I'll say is this: if anything shows why there should be tenure, it's this thread. Where, it seems to me, the basic idea is that "the community," (led no doubt by those of high moral principle and crystal-clear insight) should decide what science is, what books are, what our history is--even though they can't be bothered to learn about any of these things. So wave good-bye to evolution, to Freud, to feminist discussions, to explanations of "godless," religions such as Islam, to Judy Blume's books, to, "Huck Finn"--the good folk, leading the rest of Salem Village, are on the march.

And yes, that's exactly what's being argued for, here. Funny, though--nobody who brings this stuff up ever seems to be upset by stuff like Christian fundamentalists shoving their beliefs down students' throats, or history profs making up stories about civil-rights cuddly Pilgrims and Crusaders who "just wanted to help," (yes, somebody on this thread's actually arguing that). It's just the lefties and the liberals...imagine my surprise.

Sheesh. Sorry, but if your kids are coming home wide-eyed over What Teacher Said, if you and your community are Arguing About Books, it's probably because somebody in that school is doing their job. Sorry, too, that a couple of decades of religious fanatic propaganda and advertising for capitalism uber alles have left so many people unhappy with the best aspects of American education.

 

[Melissa426]

You are a nun hired to teach theology at a Catholic seminary. You will be teaching future priests.
Are you allowed, outside classroom activities, to espouse your beliefs that the Catholic's church's position that forbids ordination of women as priests is wrong ?

Not according to St. Meinrad School of Theology in St. Meinrad, IN, who fired Sister Carmel McEnroy for signing a letter to Pope John Paull II that called for ordination of women as priests.

Is this different from other cases because it is a religious private institution?

Melissa

 

[Phoenix44]

Is this different from other cases because it is a religious private institution?

Well, yes. Private religious institutions have always had a degree of insulation from secular law. (I happen not to agree with the decision, BTW)

In my mind, there's a difference between teaching young children and teaching college students. College students are free to disagree with the teacher. The college I went to had one economics professor who taught the superiority of capitalism, and another who taught the superiority of socialism. They taught the same course, for cryin' out loud! They just had very different opinions. The school didn't fire anybody, and the students were free to choose one professor over another.

I don't think that anyone's opinion on "tenure" has any relationship to their opinion on the expression of opinion. You can be dead set against tenure, but still respect freedom of speech.

 

[Phil Elmore]

I'm tired of people who think "freedom of speech" is an aegis under and behind which they can say whatever they like without incurring any sort of consequence whatsoever.

The natural consequence of loudly expressing unpopular opinions is being unpopular. If you say vile things about murdered citizens of the United States, you really ought to expect every decent man, woman, and child within a two mile radius of you and your raving to think you're a stinking lowlife. If you compound your comments by going on at great length about how you wish the entire nation of the United States would be destroyed, ceasing to exist forevermore, you really ought not be terribly shocked when a plurality of your fellow Americans consider you a traitorous agitator who seeks -- however indirectly and intellectually -- to murder them.

When the result of all of this is that your employer begins to wonder if it ought to employ you because of the incredibly bad press brought on it by your proximity to it, the issue is not one of freedom of speech -- for no government agency has attempted to tell you that you cannot stand on the highest mountaintop shouting your murderous, treasonous filth at all who pass by. You are certainly free to go on vomiting on the fresh graves of your fellow Americans to your heart's content. You simply cannot act shocked or otherwise seek to hide behind your First Amendment-protected freedoms when the majority of those around you would sooner see you burn alive than put you out with a sledgehammer.

The hypocrisy of wishing for the destruction of the very nation whose governing framework permits and even guarantees you the continued freedom to loudly proclaim your desire to see it salted and plowed under is lost on this Churchill's most ardent defenders. More simply, however, this is not an issue of "freedom of speech." This is an issue of accepting responsibility for one's words and one's actions.

 

[Adept]

My thoughts -

1 - I dont know what tenure is. Is it some kind of fixed period of service contract? If we have it in Australia, we probably call it something else.

2 - As everyone knows, freedom of speech is limited. You can't shout 'fire' in a crowded theatre. All that remains is to decide where to limit it in this instance.

3 - Teachers have a lot of influence over children. Not all children have parents at home who will help them, or challenge the views of a teacher.

4 - Bearing this in mind, I feel teachers should be as morally and politically neutral as possible.

 

[PeachMonkey]

Actually, Phil, the issue with the Churchill comments (which are in a different thread with a different topic from this one) is not merely freedom of speech, but academic freedom. Churchill isn't employed by a private company, but a university.

Everyone in America is free to hate Churchill for what he said, but the moment educational institutions start firing people who say unpopular things, we paralyze academia's ability to research and discuss and teach things that may not please the majority of people.

 

[Phil Elmore]

No, it's not an academic freedom issue. If he was "teaching" the joys of man-boy love and advocating child molestation, he woudl be every bit as unfit to teach our nation's children as he is in advocating the destruction of the United States while pissing on the graves of those murdered by terrorists.

At what point do we decide that there are standards of decency and professionalism, the violation of which renders one unfit to be an employee of a given employer?

 

[TigerWoman]

At what point do we decide that there are standards of decency and professionalism, the violation of which renders one unfit to be an employee of a given employer?

Exactly what I was trying to say! TW

 

[shesulsa]

No, it's not an academic freedom issue. If he was "teaching" the joys of man-boy love and advocating child molestation, he woudl be every bit as unfit to teach our nation's children as he is in advocating the destruction of the United States while pissing on the graves of those murdered by terrorists.

At what point do we decide that there are standards of decency and professionalism, the violation of which renders one unfit to be an employee of a given employer?

Mr. Elmore, it does not take a genius to recognize that the "joys of man-boy love" nor "the advocating of child molestation" are not viable nor acceptable subjects which a student must study for the betterment of the mind. Questioning authority is most definitely indicated as part of stretching and growing the intellectual and moral capacity of our youth.

An act of piracy gets attention and, though I do not necessarily agree with all that Mr. Churchill has to say and agree that his background is suspect, I think once one peels away at the smelly outside layers of his comments, the core is certainly considerable.

As to your statement of standards of decency and unfit employees, in this instance, this is based PURELY on opinion. The educational model must be one of openmindedness to a degree. Even to an almost alarmist degree. And his employeeship is up for discussion there. All kinds of whackos are teaching our kids, he is just one. The point is to make people think and discuss ... especially young minds who, until that point in their lives, have been taught that they must follow all rules unquestionably.

Squashing teachers and their curriculi isn't the answer.

 

[TigerWoman]

My thoughts -


2 - As everyone knows, freedom of speech is limited. You can't shout 'fire' in a crowded theatre. All that remains is to decide where to limit it in this instance.

3 - Teachers have a lot of influence over children. Not all children have parents at home who will help them, or challenge the views of a teacher.

4 - Bearing this in mind, I feel teachers should be as morally and politically neutral as possible.

I agree with this. Teachers shouldn't be quashed but neither should they have full rein especially those in grade school. College, students have to have both sides and formulate their opinions again with neutrality. But I've seen teachers in a Christian college influence greatly these young formulative minds too, to the point that what parents said was literally shut out. Brainwashed? TW

 

[Phil Elmore]

Mr. Elmore, it does not take a genius to recognize that the "joys of man-boy love" nor "the advocating of child molestation" are not viable nor acceptable subjects which a student must study for the betterment of the mind.

By the same token, it does not take a genius to recognize that advocating the destruction of the very nation of which one's students are citizens while proclaiming that those mass-murdered by cowardly terrorist attacks deserved what happened to them are neither viable nor acceptable subjects that a student must study for the betterment of the mind.

This is not a freedom of speech issue and it is not an academic freedom issue -- any more than shouting "Fire!" or perhaps "Let's go murder some people!" in a crowded theater or classroom would be protected by said freedoms.

All those lining up to defend Ward Churchill (while paying lipservice to his right to "free speech") have outed themselves as no better than the aforementioned child molesters, terrorists, and mass-murdering thugs. As the old saying goes, when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.