Kids these days are pretty strong and come to class with
their own views - I don't find my students impressionable at
all. Years ago, yes, now, no.

On facts vs. opinions - facts are pretty murky and many
things are opinions one way or another. I don't think it's
possible to teach a history class without one's personal bias
coming through along the way.

It would be wrong for any teacher to say "your opinion has to
agree with mine' but when you think about it, we do that with
every test we give but we say "we're testing the facts'. It's
a Very Dry Test that has nothing but facts -

What was the cause of the Civil War? Was the South justified
in thinking they could withdraw from an agreement they'd made
in 1787? How do you teach that? Is such an agreement binding
for all time?

I once had a kid stand up in my class and say what Hitler did
in terms of starting a war was justified.... Germany was in
trouble and to save the country, Hitler went overboard - he
said - but it was understandable.

How was I to react to that? To this day, I'm ashamed of my
reaction which was disgust for the student. It was almost the
end of the year and I shunned the kid. I will never agree
with such a statement but I shouldn't have shunned the kid.

School is a slanted process from the get-go. We're government
schools - we don't teach anarchy. We don't teach kids to
question us and what we do - our schools are NOT democracies
and neither are our classrooms.

> >
> Two extremes of this kind of teaching are shown in Hiding
> Out (Jonathan Cryer goes into hiding for witness protection
> and hides out by going back to his cousin's high school)
> and Back to School (Rodney Dangerfield goes back to college
> to show his son how important an education is and faces off
> with contemporary history teacher Sam Kinnison). I've
> included the link to the Rodney Dangerfield movie but
> couldn't find one for Cryer's. Warning: language is harsh
> as one would expect from Dangerfield and Kinnison, but it
> certainly makes its point. Here's a link to the trailer for
> the other flick with Cryer... you'll get the idea from it
> though. http://www.flixster.com/movie/hiding-out
>
> I believe that we as teachers have almost a sacred trust to
> teach our students the facts, and then allow them to
> interpret them, not force our opinions or views on them,
> however gently or forcefully we do it. I've had to teach my
> daughter to "go along" with the teacher for the grade and
> hold to her beliefs. We have some great discussions at
> home, but for the kids who don't have educated parents or a
> homelife where they can discuss what their kids are
> learning, these teachers are little more than re-education
> specialists, giving a slanted view of world politics from
> the past to the present. It's scary.
>
> How do you feel about teachers imposing their political
> views on impressionable students?
>
>
>

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