CURMUDGUCATION: Not Politics In The Classroom

CURMUDGUCATION: Not Politics In The Classroom

Not Politics In The Classroom

 Distance learning seems to have pumped new life into the debate about politics in the classroom. From parents freaking out over a Black Lives Matter poster, to simple declarations that teachers should never, ever talk politics, to the Pesident's adoption of the call for more patriotic education, we're back to arguing about how much political content should make it into a classroom.

I actually agree that a teacher's politics don't belong in the classroom. But there' a reason that maintaining the wall has become more difficult, and I'm pretty sure I don't mean the same thing that some critics mean.  But I have another way to sort this out--I'll get there eventually. 

The problem is bigger because of the politization of everything

One of the extremes represented by the current administration is the extension of a personal political brand. This kind of bundling is not new--if you were a Prohibitionist, there was a whole batch of political positions having nothing to do with alcohol that you were expected to support. But Trump has taken this over the top, from the very beginning of his term when he established that counting people in a photograph was a political statement. 

That has simply accelerated. If you say that climate science is real, that Black lives matter, that California is a lovely state, that Mexicans are not all racists, that racism is part of US history, that mocking disabled people is wrong, that Nazis are always bad, and any number of other comments, you have taken a partisan political stand. Trump has staked his claim to so many positions that it's hard to have a position on anything at all and not be taking a side for or against the President. Again, this is not new--once upon a time, it was partisan politics to say that ketchup is not a vegetable. But it's as bad now as it has ever been, and needlessly extended to a number of piddly issues.

For some subjects, this is an extension of an old minefield. I taught US literature for decades, which meant that I had to discuss race, religion and gender issues every week. All of those are more politically fraught now than they were thirty years ago. My position was always, explicitly, "I am not here to tell you whether these folks were right or wrong, but to show you as clearly as I can how they saw the world and their place in it." But the very notion that somebody can hold a particular point of view for reasons CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Not Politics In The Classroom