Politics in the Classroom

marite
Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:37:02 +0000

I’d suggest keeping your political opinions to yourself. Don’t take on the role of devil’s advocate yourself. It can be very intimidating for a student to have his/her ideas challenged by the teacher. Play the referee instead. Assign students to take up certain positions at random, ask them to justify their positions, get the rest of the class to critique the performance, add arguments, etc…

On PTA night, you can say that you have your own political opinions, like everyone else but that you see your role as helping your students develop their own critical faculties through discussion and debate, that you will respect and expect all students to respect the opinions of others. If you know that a particular student is a fervent admirer of a particular policy or person, it might actually be a good idea to get the student to advocate for the opposite.

Is it Belmont, by the way? It has a huge Mormon temple visible for miles!